ly.

"Well, when I haf to go to bed, Willie," she said, "mamma told me
because I made you feel bad I haf to go up-stairs by myself, to-night."

She paused, seeming to hope that he would say something, but he spake
not.

"Willie, I don't haf to go for a while yet, but when I do--maybe in
about a half an hour--I wish you'd come stand at the foot of the stairs
till I get up there. The light's lit up-stairs, but down around here
it's kind of dark."

He did not answer.

"Will you, Willie?"

"Oh, all RIGHT!" he said.

This contented her, and she seated herself so quietly upon the floor,
just inside the door, that he ceased to be aware of her, thinking she
had gone away. He sat staring vacantly into the darkness, which had come
on with that abruptness which begins to be noticeable in September.
His elbows were on his knees, and his body was sunk far forward in an
attitude of desolation.

The small noises of the town--that town so empty to-night--fell upon his
ears mockingly. It seemed to him incredible that so hollow a town could
go about its nightly affairs just as usual. A man and a woman, going
by, laughed loudly at something the man had said: the sound of their
laughter was horrid to William. And from a great distance from far out
in the country--there came the faint, long-drawn whistle of an engine.

That was the sorrowfulest sound of all to William. His lonely mind's
eye sought the vasty spaces to the east; crossed prairie, and river, and
hill, to where a long train whizzed onward through the dark--farther
and farther and farther away. William uttered a sigh, so hoarse, so deep
from the tombs, so prolonged, that Jane, who had been relaxing herself
at full length upon the floor, sat up straight with a jerk.

But she was wise enough not to speak.

Now the full moon came masquerading among the branches of the
shade-trees; it came in the likeness of an enormous football, gloriously
orange. Gorgeously it rose higher, cleared the trees, and resumed its
wonted impersonation of a silver disk. Here was another mockery: What
was the use of a moon NOW?

Its use appeared straightway.

In direct coincidence with that rising moon, there came from a little
distance down the street the sound of a young male voice, singing.
It was not a musical voice, yet sufficiently loud; and it knew only a
portion of the words and air it sought to render, but, upon completing
the portion it did know, it instantly began again, and sang