ff
the veranda, and called merrily:--

"Remember, boy, that when there's another note that baffles me, I'm
going to send for you."

"He's coming anyhow. I asked him," announced Jill.

And David laughed back a happy "Of course I am!"

CHAPTER XIV

THE TOWER WINDOW

It is not to be expected that when one's thoughts lead so persistently
to a certain place, one's feet will not follow, if they can; and
David's could--so he went to seek his Lady of the Roses.

At four o'clock one afternoon, with his violin under his arm, he
traveled the firm white road until he came to the shadowed path that
led to the garden. He had decided that he would go exactly as he went
before. He expected, in consequence, to find his Lady exactly as he had
found her before, sitting reading under the roses. Great was his
surprise and disappointment, therefore, to find the garden with no one
in it.

He had told himself that it was the sundial, the roses, the shimmering
pool, the garden itself that he wanted to see; but he knew now that it
was the lady--his Lady of the Roses. He did not even care to play,
though all around him was the beauty that had at first so charmed his
eye. Very slowly he walked across the sunlit, empty space, and entered
the path that led to the house. In his mind was no definite plan; yet
he walked on and on, until he came to the wide lawns surrounding the
house itself. He stopped then, entranced.

Stone upon stone the majestic pile raised itself until it was etched,
clean-cut, against the deep blue of the sky. The towers--his
towers--brought to David's lips a cry of delight. They were even more
enchanting here than when seen from afar over the tree-tops, and David
gazed up at them in awed wonder. From somewhere came the sound of
music--a curious sort of music that David had never heard before. He
listened intently, trying to place it; then slowly he crossed the lawn,
ascended the imposing stone steps, and softly opened one of the narrow
screen doors before the wide-open French window.

Once within the room David drew a long breath of ecstasy. Beneath his
feet he felt the velvet softness of the green moss of the woods. Above
his head he saw a sky-like canopy of blue carrying fleecy clouds on
which floated little pink-and-white children with wings, just as David
himself had so often wished that he could float. On all sides silken
hangings, like the green of swaying vines, half-hid other hangings of
feathery, snow