to appear in the fancy-dress ball at twelve retired to
the rooms above to dress for their parts.

Nan left Stuart with a pretty sigh to arrange her costume.

"I'm sorry you never learned to dance, Jim, but there are compensations
to-night. I've a surprise for you later."

Before he could reply, with a wave of her bare arm, she was gone, and
he stood for a moment wondering what further surprise could be in store
after what he had seen.

He noted with some astonishment the peculiar sombre effects of the ball
room. He had expected a scene of splendour. Instead the impression was
distinctly funereal. The lights were dimmed like the interior of a
theatre during the performance and the lofty gilded ceilings with their
mural decorations seemed to be draped in filmy black crepe.

The professional entertainment began on the little stage amid a
universal gabble which made it impossible for anything save pantomime
to be intelligible beyond the footlights. Star after star, whose
services had cost $1,000 each for one hour, appeared without commanding
the slightest attention. At last there was a hush and every eye was
fixed on the stage. Stuart looked up quickly to see what miracle had
caused the silence.

An oriental dancing girl, barefooted and naked save for the slightest
suggestion of covering about her waist and bust, was the centre of
attraction. For five minutes she held the crowd spell-bound with a
dance so beautifully sensual no theatrical manager would have dared
present it. Yet it was received by the only burst of applause which
broke the monotony of the occasion.

Stuart turned to the program in his hand and idly read the next number:

"A song by an unknown star."

He was wondering what joke the manager was about to perpetrate on the
crowd when his ear caught the first sweet notes of Harriet's voice
singing the old song he loved so well, the song she had first sung the
day he came from the South.

His heart gave a throb of pain. Who could have prepared this
humiliation for his little pal! He pushed his way through the throng of
chattering fools until he stood alone straight in front of the slender
little singer. She saw him at once, smiled, and sang as he had never
heard her sing. Her eyes shone with a strange light and Stuart knew she
was in the spirit world. The rabble of ignorant men and women before
her did not exist. She was singing to an invisible audience save for
the one man who looked up into her eye