ilver
candlesticks; their light flowed gently across the gleaming cloth,
touched the Maestro's white hair, and lost itself timidly in the dim
area outside the table. Kirk was enthroned in a big carved chair at the
foot of the table, very grave and happy, with a candle at either side.

"A fit shrine for devotion," murmured the Maestro, looking across at
him, and then, turning, busied himself vigorously with the carving.

It was a quite wonderful supper--banquet would have been a more fitting
name for it, the Sturgises thought. For such food was not seen on the
little table at Applegate Farm. And there was raspberry wine, in which
to drink Kirk's health, and the Maestro stood up and made a beautiful
speech. There was also a cake, with nine candles flaring bravely,--no
one had ever before thought to give Kirk a birthday cake with candles
that he could not see, and he was deeply impressed.

And after it was all over, they gathered content about the library fire,
and the Maestro went to the piano.

"Kirk," he said quietly, "I have no very exciting present for you. But
once, long ago, I made a song for a child on his birthday. He was just
as old as you. He has no longer any need of it--so I give it, my dear,
to you. It is the greatest gift I have to give."

In the silence that followed, there crept into the firelit room the
star-clear notes of a little prelude. Then the Maestro sang softly:

"Roses in the moonlight,
To-night all thine,
Pale in the shade, and bright
In the star-shine;
Roses and lilies white,
Dear child of mine!

My heart I give to thee,
This day all thine;
At thy feet let it be--
It is the sign
Of all thou art to me,
Dear child--"

But the poor Maestro could not finish the verse. He swung about on the
piano-stool, trying to frame a laughing apology. Kirk went to him
instantly, both hands outstretched in his haste. His fingers found the
Maestro's bowed shoulders; his arms went tight about the Maestro's
neck. In his passionately whispered confidence the old gentleman must
have found solace, for he presently smiled,--a real smile,--and then
still keeping Kirk beside him, began playing a sonata. Ken and Felicia,
sunk unobtrusively in the big chairs at the hearth, were each aware of a
subtle kindredship between these two at the piano--a something which
they could not altogether understand.

"He brings out a side of Kirk that we don't know about," Felicia
thought. "It must be the music.