a tall young man against the fire-glow--came
and abruptly closed the door from within, and the picture was gone. The
fitful music ceased again; the house was quiet.

Thereupon Richard Kendrick grew impatient. Fully ten minutes must have
elapsed since his youthful conductor had disappeared. He looked about
him for some means of summoning attention, but discovered none.

Suddenly a latchkey rattled uselessly in the lock of the front door;
then came lusty knocks upon its stout panels, accompanied by the
whirring of a bell somewhere in the distance.

A maidservant came hurriedly into the hall through a door near Richard,
and at the same moment a boy of ten or eleven came tearing down the
front stairs. As the lad shouted through the door, Richard recognized
his late conductor.

"You can't get in, Daddy; the lock's gone queer. Come around to the
back. I'll see to him, Mary," the boy called to the maid, who, nodding,
disappeared.

At this moment the door opposite Richard opened again, and the mother of
the household came out, her comely waist closely clasped by the arm of
the young girl. The two were followed by the tall young man.

Richard stood up, and was, of course, instantly upon the road to the
delivery of his message.

Ted, ushering in his father, and spying the waiting messenger, cried
repentantly, "Oh, I forgot!" and the tall young man responded gravely,
"You usually do, don't you, Cub?" This elder son of the house, waving
the small boy aside, attended to taking Richard to the library, and to
summoning Judge Calvin Gray.

In five minutes the business had been dispatched, Judge Gray had made
friendly inquiry into the condition of his old friend's health, and
Richard was ready to take his departure. Curiously enough he did not now
want to go. As he stood for a moment near the open library door, while
Judge Gray returned to his desk for a newspaper clipping, the caller was
listening to the eager greetings taking place in the hall just out of
his sight. The father of the family appeared to have returned from an
absence of some length, and the entire household had come rushing to
meet and welcome him. Richard listened for the contralto notes he had
heard above, and presently detected them declaring with vivid emphasis:
"Mother has been a dear, splendid martyr. Nobody would have guessed she
was lonely, but--we knew!"

"She couldn't possibly have been more lonely than I. Next time I'll take
her with me!" was the