, easily
forgotten. The Alhambra itself had, from the first, seemed perfectly
familiar to him, and he knew that he must have trod that court,
sleek and brown and obsequious, centuries before Ferdinand rode into
Andalusia. The letter was full of confidences about his work, and
delicate allusions to their old happy days of study and comradeship, and
of her own work, still so warmly remembered and appreciatively discussed
everywhere he went.

As Everett folded the letter he felt that Adriance had divined the thing
needed and had risen to it in his own wonderful way. The letter was
consistently egotistical and seemed to him even a trifle patronizing,
yet it was just what she had wanted. A strong realization of his
brother's charm and intensity and power came over him; he felt the
breath of that whirlwind of flame in which Adriance passed, consuming
all in his path, and himself even more resolutely than he consumed
others. Then he looked down at this white, burnt-out brand that lay
before him. "Like him, isn't it?" she said, quietly.

"I think I can scarcely answer his letter, but when you see him next you
can do that for me. I want you to tell him many things for me, yet they
can all be summed up in this: I want him to grow wholly into his best
and greatest self, even at the cost of the dear boyishness that is half
his charm to you and me. Do you understand me?"

"I know perfectly well what you mean," answered Everett, thoughtfully.
"I have often felt so about him myself. And yet it's difficult to
prescribe for those fellows; so little makes, so little mars."

Katharine raised herself upon her elbow, and her face flushed with
feverish earnestness. "Ah, but it is the waste of himself that I mean;
his lashing himself out on stupid and uncomprehending people until they
take him at their own estimate. He can kindle marble, strike fire from
putty, but is it worth what it costs him?"

"Come, come," expostulated Everett, alarmed at her excitement. "Where is
the new sonata? Let him speak for himself."

He sat down at the piano and began playing the first movement, which was
indeed the voice of Adriance, his proper speech. The sonata was the most
ambitious work he had done up to that time and marked the transition
from his purely lyric vein to a deeper and nobler style. Everett played
intelligently and with that sympathetic comprehension which seems
peculiar to a certain lovable class of men who never accomplish anything
in p