to the piano in the parlour and entertained
one and all with songs of a comic or sentimental character. He knew a
piano intimately, and his voice was one of these here melting tenors that
get right inside of you and nestle. He was about the most ingratiating
young man I'd ever met, and I didn't wonder any more about Vida's look
of joy being permanent. She'd look in on the party every once in a while
from the kitchen or the dining room where she was helping her Swede do
the dishes for fifteen people and set the table for breakfast.

She was about an hour at this, and when at last she'd slipped out of her
big apron and joined us she was looking right tuckered but still joyous.
Clyde patted his Baby Girl's hand when she come in, and she let herself
go into an easy-chair near him that one of the boarders got up to give
her. I got the swift idea that this was the first time all day she'd set
down with any right feeling of rest.

Then Clyde sung to her. You could tell it was a song he meant for her and
never sung till she'd got the work done up. A right pretty old song it
was, Clyde throwing all the loving warmth of his first-class tenor voice
into the words:

Good night, good night, beloved!
I come to watch o'er thee,
To be near thee, to be near thee.

I forget the rest, but there was happy tears in Vida's eyes when he
finished in one climbing tenor burst. Then Clyde gets up and says he
has an engagement down to his college club because some of his dear old
classmates has gathered there for a quiet little evening of reminiscence
and the jolly old rascals pretend they can't get along without him. Vida
beams on him brighter than ever and tells him to be sure and have a good
time, which I'd bet money he'd be sure to.

It was a very pretty scene when they said good night. Vida pretended
that Clyde's voice was falling off from smoking too many cigarettes at
this club. "I wouldn't mind you're going there, but I just know you spend
most of the time in the club's horrid old smoking room!" She tells him
this with a pout. Smoking room of a club! The knowing little minx! And
Clyde chided her right back in a merry fashion. He lifted one of her
hands and said his Baby Girl would have to take better care of them
because the cunnun' little handies was getting all rough. Then they
both laughed and went out for a long embrace in the hall.

Vida come back with a glowing countenance, and the boarders having
dropped off to their rooms w