were colored by the plight Winn found himself in and
his desire to set himself right in the eyes of Mona.

"I do not know why it is," she responded, "but when I go there I seem to
enjoy my practice better, and then I feel that no one can hear me.
Mother says that no one will ever want to," she added naively.

Winn smiled.

"But I want to," he said, "I want to go there with you some day and hear
you play 'Annie Laurie' again; will you let me?"

"I won't promise," she replied, and perhaps mindful of her mother's
opinion added: "Mother doesn't approve of my playing a fiddle. She says
it's not graceful."

This time Winn laughed. "I don't believe you could do anything and not
be graceful," he said. "As for that, I have seen Camilla Urso playing
one before an audience of thousands, and no one thought her ungraceful."

"Who is Camilla Urso?" asked Mona.

"She was a wonderful violinist," answered Winn, "and charmed the whole
world, years ago. If you will let me come to this spot with you, I will
tell you all about her."

Mona turned her face away.

"I don't go there very often," she replied evasively; "and if you have
heard such wonderful playing, I wouldn't dare let you hear me. I don't
know anything except what Uncle Jess has taught me." Then as she started
onward she added, "You must ask him to play for you some time; he knows
how."

"But it is you I want to hear," Winn asserted, and then, as an intuition
came to him, he added: "I think it best you go on home alone, Miss
Hutton; it might cause comment if we go on together. I passed a most
delightful hour with you and your mother last Sunday evening, and, with
your permission, I shall repeat it."

And then, having delivered this polite speech, so utterly unlike what
Mona was accustomed to hear, he raised his hat and turned away.

On the brink of the gorge he halted, and, turning again, watched her
rapidly nearing the top of the hill. Reaching its crest, she faced about
and looked back.

CHAPTER IX

A FRIENDLY HAND

The suggestion Jess had made regarding the scarcity of money on
Rockhaven was plainly evident to Winn, now that he had become
acquainted. It made him feel that his firm's enterprise was almost a
godsend to the island, and that first Saturday night when his men
gathered, as requested, at Jess Hutton's store, and secured their pay,
Winn, who in his time had also felt the need of more money, found it a
keen pleasure to pay these needy men t