ad died!"

Lockwin is up and away at seven o'clock in the morning. "Be careful of
the boy, Esther," he says. "What does the doctor seem to think?"

"He gives the same medicine," says Esther, "but Davy played his
orguinette for over an hour yesterday."

"He did! Good! Esther, that lifts me up. I wish I could have heard
him!"

"David, I fear that you are overtasking yourself. Do be careful!
please be careful!"

Tears come in the fine eyes of the wife. Lockwin's back is turned.

"Good! Good!" he is saying. "So Davy played! I'll warrant it was
'Back to Our Mountains!'"

"Yes," says the wife.

"Good! Good! That's right. By-bye, Esther."

And the man goes out to victory whistling the lament of the crooning
witch, "Back to Our Mountains! Back to Our Mountains!"

"Why should Davy be so fond of that?" thinks the whistler.

But this week of campaign cannot stretch out forever. It must end,
just as Lockwin feels that another speech had killed him. It must end
with Lockwin's nerves agog, so that when a book falls over on the
shelves he starts like a deer at a shot.

It is Monday night, and there will be no speeches by the candidates.
Esther has prepared to celebrate the evening by a gathering of a
half-dozen intimate friends to hear an eminent violinist, whose
performances are the delight of Chicago. The violinist is doubly
eminent because he has a wife who is devoted to her husband's renown.

Lockwin sits on a sofa with his pet nestled at the side. What a sense
of rest is this! How near heaven is this! He looks down on his little
boy and has but one wish--that he might be across the room to behold
the picture. Perhaps the man is extravagantly fond of that view of
curly head, white face, dark brow and large, clear eyes!

Would the violinist make such an effect if his wife were not there to
strike those heavy opening chords of that "Faust" fantasie?

"Will they play 'Back to Our Mountains?'" whispers the child.

"Keep still, Davy," the man says, himself silenced by a great rendition.

"The doctor's horse is sick," whispers Davy, hoarsely.

"Yes, I know," says the man. "Bravo, professor, bravo! You are a
great artist."

"But the doctor's both horses is sick," insists Davy.

"Bravo! professor, bravo!"

Now comes the sweetest of cradle-songs, the professor with damper on
his strings, the professor's wife scarcely touching the piano.

The strain ends. The man is in tears--not the tears