uips,
commenting, "Mistuh Jon'than,--_chuckle_--ef yo' ain'--_chuckle_--de
beatenes' evuh!" and warned David in a stage whisper to save room for a
miracle of a pudding to come. Mrs. Radbourne opened the casket of her
memory to display several well polished anecdotes of a day when the world
must have been very bright indeed, full of light and color; chiefest
jewel of which concerned a meeting with the elder Booth, from which
occasion her husband--that very firm man--had emerged with credit. If,
as some wise man has said, wit is all a matter of the right audience,
then David must have been very witty indeed. And across the table from
him sat a pair of slate-gray eyes, still aglow with that sense of
adventure.

Then there were cigars, mild and very good, smoked on the porch; both
ladies protesting that they liked the fragrance of tobacco. And then the
host, with the air of having come to the real business of the meeting,
rose and said:

"Shall we have some music now?"

"Oh, by all means!" said David politely, wondering how much credence he
ought to place in the advance notices.

They went into the parlor, where Jonathan turned to Miss Summers, "Do you
feel like singing this evening?"

"Yes," she said, and went at once to the piano.

She played a few chords softly. And then her voice rose in a low
crooning note that went straight to David's heart.

For she sang as the thrush sings--because God had put music in her heart
and shaped her throat to give forth pure rich liquid sounds and meant her
to be revealed through song. And that evening, in the simple little
slumber song she sang first, there was no faltering or roughened note to
tell that part of her gift had been taken from her. While she sang,
there was nothing in the world but melody and the rest of which she
sang . . . and the singer.

She ended. But over at least one of her audience the spell of her voice
lingered. For a long moment David sat motionless, lips parted, staring
wonderingly at her, even after she had swung around to face them.

"Why--" he stammered foolishly. "Why--I didn't think--"

The rose pink in her cheeks became rose madder and it was easy to see
that she was happy over something. "Oh," she said, "it just happens to
be one of my good days. Sometimes my voice leaves me in the middle of a
note and lets me down flat." She laughed, as though there were humor in
that.

David did not laugh. He saw no humor in that. He could n