ause Milly Ann
catches all kind of live things. I don't like her to
do that, but I heard she was born that way and can't
help it." 56

"You needn't feel so glad nor look as if you was
goin' to tumble over. It ain't no credit to anyone
them curtains was on the shelf waitin' to be cut up
in a dress for you to fiddle in." 136

"Play for me," Theodore said. "Stand by that big tree
so I can look at you." 216

ROSE O' PARADISE

CHAPTER I

FATHER AND DAUGHTER

On a hill, reared back from a northern lake, stood a weather-beaten
farmhouse, creaking in a heavy winter blizzard. It was an
old-fashioned, many-pillared structure. The earmarks of hard winters
and the fierce suns of summer were upon it. From the main road it was
scarcely discernible, settled, as it was, behind a row of pine trees,
which in the night wind beat and tossed mournfully.

In the front room, which faced the porch, sat a man,--a tall, thin
man, with straight, long jaws, and heavy overhanging brows. With moody
eyes he was staring into the grate fire, a fearful expression upon his
face.

He straightened his shoulders, got up, and paced the floor back and
forth, stopping now and then to listen expectantly. Then again he
seated himself to wait. Several times, passionately insistent, he
shook his head, and it was as if the refusal were being made to an
invisible presence. Suddenly he lifted his face as the sound of a
weird, wild wail was borne to him, mingling with the elf-like moaning
of the wind. He leaned forward slightly, listening intently. From
somewhere above him pleading notes from a violin were making the night
even more mournful. A change came over the thin face.

"My God!" he exclaimed aloud. "Who's playing like that?"

He crossed the room and jerked the bell-rope roughly. In a few moments
the head of a middle-aged colored woman appeared at the door.

"Did you tell my daughter I wanted to see her?" questioned the man.

"No, sah, I didn't. When you got here she wasn't in. Then she slid to
the garret afore I saw 'er. Now she's got to finish her fiddlin' afore
I tell 'er you're here. I never bother Miss Jinnie when she's
fiddlin', sah." The old woman bowed obsequiously, as if pleading
pardon.

The man made a threatening gesture.

"Go immediately and send her to me," said he.

For perhaps tw