eading in his question.

"Yes," sighed the Master, "I take you. Tuesdays and Fridays at ten.
Bring your violin and what music you have. We will see what you have
done and what you can do. Good-bye."

He did not seem to see Lynn's offered hand, and the boy went out, sorely
troubled by something which seemed just outside his comprehension. He
walked for an hour in the woods before going home, and in answer to
questions merely said that he had been obliged to wait for some time,
but that everything was satisfactorily arranged.

"Isn't he an old dear?" asked Iris.

"I don't know," answered Lynn. "Is he?"

III

The Gift of Peace

The mistress of the mansion was giving her orders for the day. From the
farthest nooks and corners of the attic, where fragrant herbs swayed
back and forth in ghostly fashion, to the tiled kitchen, where burnished
copper saucepans literally shone, Miss Field kept in daily touch with
her housekeeping.

The old Colonial house was her pride and her delight. It was by far the
oldest in that part of the country, and held an exalted position among
its neighbours on that account, though the owner, not having spent her
entire life in East Lancaster, was considered somewhat "new." To be
truly aristocratic, at least three generations of one's forbears must
have lived in the same dwelling.

In the hall hung the old family portraits. Gentlemen and gentlewomen,
long since gathered to their fathers, had looked down from their gilded
frames upon many a strange scene. Baby footsteps had faltered on the
stairs, and wide childish eyes had looked up in awe to this stately
company. Older children had wondered at the patches and the powdered
hair, the velvet knickerbockers and ruffled sleeves. Awkward schoolboys
had boasted to their mates that the jewelled sword, which hung at the
side of a young officer in the uniform of the Colonies, had been
presented by General Washington himself, in recognition of conspicuous
bravery upon the field. Lovers had led their sweethearts along the hall
at twilight, to whisper that their portraits, too, should some day hang
there, side by side. Soldiers of Fortune who had found their leader
fickle had taken fresh courage from the set lips of the gallant
gentlemen in the great hall. Women whose hearts were breaking had looked
up to the painted and powdered dames along the winding stairway, and
learned, through some subtle freemasonry of sex, that only the lowborn
cry ou