ress the baby, and to the music
of its glad laugh you will kick your cloven hoof, you superannuated old
fiend. What have I done that you must select me for your soloist on the
violin?"

As he talked, Bill looked steadily at the flames as if at the face of a
person. When he had thus relieved his mind he took down his heavy coat,
and nervously buttoned it round him. Snatching his hat, he jammed it
over his eyes and opened the door. With one hand on the latch, he turned
and glanced over his shoulder. The apparition had vanished.

"The devil is mighty eager for a dance, else my old eyes have been
making a fool of me."

Leaving the door wide open, he returned to the fireplace. He waited a
while, but did not see the face in the fire.

With a glad shout he suddenly ran to the door, and slammed it shut.

"I'm free, free!" he cried, clapping his hands gleefully.

Hanging his coat and hat on their pegs, he sat down before the fire, and
congratulated himself on his liberty. But his cheerful mood did not last
long. Soon he began to shiver, and in the fire beheld the devil return.

"Oh, Lord! he is back. I am still his slave. He has not removed the
violin-mask. Yes, yes, I go to my child."

Bareheaded he plunged into the cold, which he did not mind, and the
darkness, which he did not heed, for his way was marked by the light of
the Three-Sister furnaces, reflected by the clouds.

Lizzi was at the window, listening to the gunshots--the farewell volleys
to the old year, the welcoming salute to the new--when a cold, nervous
hand was laid on her shoulder. She had not heard the door open, but as
it was like any one of the boys to steal up behind her and say something
humorous in her ear she sat still, and continued to watch for the
flashes of the guns.

"Lizzi, what has happened to my fiddle?"

Recognizing Bill Kellar's voice, harsh as it was, she caught his hand in
a hard grip and turned, not knowing whether she would face a lunatic or
a drunken man, but afraid of neither.

He was not intoxicated nor seemingly crazy, only intensely eager. His
eyes were not wild, but pathetically pleading as they met hers.

"Nothin', Bill," she replied gently. "It's just as you left it. I keep
it in the cupboard, and Blind Benner dusts it often."

His fast walk, which had been a sort of run over the frozen road, had
worn Bill out, and he almost swooned with joy when he heard the good
news. As he gasped for breath his body swayed, and he w