t from the wings, where to halt on the
stage, how to bow, to step side-wise and backward; and when these
lessons had been learned, the manager with a few friends and Jess and
her teacher took seats in front, and she walked out once more with her
violin. She had expected to be badly scared, but it was all so
matter-of-fact, and her deportment considered as of more importance than
her playing, that when it came to that it was the easiest of all.

Twice she played the two selections Fritz had decided upon, the first, a
medley of Scotch airs, and for an encore, the gem of all she
knew--"Annie Laurie."

When she concluded each time, a sincere ripple of applause from the
group of men composing her audience encouraged her.

"She'll win 'em," asserted the manager, tersely, when Mona had retired,
"if only she can go on once and not wilt."

"I want you to come here daily for a week," he said to Mona, when she
was ready to leave, "and get used to this matter. Your playing is
excellent, and if you can forget the audience for ten minutes and do as
well, you are made!"

But warmer encouragement came from Jess when home was reached that day.

"I'm proud o' ye, girlie," he said, his face glowing and his eyes
alight, "I'm proud o' ye, 'n' if ye'll fiddle as ye kin 'n' hold yer
head 'fore 'em, I'll shed tears o' joy. We'll rig ye up," he continued,
"right away, an' all ye need to do is jist to say to yerself, 'I kin do
it,' an' feel it, an' ye will."

How easy to say, but alas, how hard to do!

For a week Mona lived in a trance with only one thought, and that of the
awful moment when she must perforce stand alone before that hydra-headed
monster--an audience.

Sometimes her heart failed for a moment, and it seemed she could never
do it; then a strain of the indomitable will that had come down to her
from her Carver ancestors arose, and she said to herself, "I will."

Then back of that lay another point of pride. "Perhaps _he_ will be
there to see me," she thought.

For all these months, while she had silently fought her own heartache,
Winn Hardy's face and words had been ever present.

All the covert flatteries he had spoken in the cave, all the praises of
her playing, the description of the wonderful woman before whom the
world bowed, the tender words of love he had uttered, to end with one
cold letter of dismissal, and she left to rise above and conquer her
own pain alone and unaided, came back now.

It was well that th