ain thrilled me,
and I heard her whispering,--

"Do not go on, do not go on! I cannot stand it to-night!"

"Hush," I whispered back; "come out for a moment!" We stole into the
dusk without, and stood there trembling. I swayed with her emotion.
There was a long silence. Then she said: "Father may be walking alone
now by the black cataract. That is where he goes when he is sad. I can
see how lonely he looks among those little twisted pines that grow from
the rock. And he will be remembering all the evenings we walked there
together, and all the things we said." I did not answer. Her eyes were
still on the sea.

"What was the name of the man who wrote that verse you just said to me?"

I told her.

"And he is dead? Did they bury him in the mountains? No? I wish I could
have put him where he could have heard those four voices calling down
the canyon."

"Come back in the house," I said; "you must come, indeed," I said, as
she shrank from re-entering.

Jessica was dancing like a fairy with Leroy. They both saw us and smiled
as we came in, and a moment later they joined us. I made my excuses
and left my friends to Jessica's care. She was a sort of social
tyrant wherever she was, and I knew one word from her would insure the
popularity of our friends--not that they needed the intervention of any
one. Leroy had been a sort of drawing-room pet since before he stopped
wearing knickerbockers.

"He is at his best in a drawing-room," said Jessica, "because there
he deals with theory and not with action. And he has such beautiful
theories that the women, who are all idealists, adore him."

The next morning I awoke with a conviction that I had been idling too
long. I went back to the city and brushed the dust from my desk. Then
each morning, I, as Jessica put it, "formed public opinion" to the
extent of one column a day in the columns of a certain enterprising
morning journal.

Brainard said I had treated him shabbily to leave upon the heels of his
coming. But a man who works for his bread and butter must put a limit to
his holiday. It is different when you only work to add to your general
picturesqueness. That is what I wrote Leroy, and it was the unkindest
thing I ever said to him; and why I did it I do not know to this day. I
was glad, though, when he failed to answer the letter. It gave me a more
reasonable excuse for feeling out of patience with him.

The days that followed were very dull. It was hard to get back into