d smiling.

"And it doesn't bother you in your work?"

"It helps me," he declared--thinking of that portrait of Mrs. Taine.

"Oh, I am glad, glad!" she cried. "I wanted it to help. It was for that I
played."

"You played to help me?" he asked wonderingly.

She nodded. "I thought it might--if I could get enough of the mountains
into my music, you know."

"And will you dance for me, sometimes too?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I cannot tell about that. You see, I only dance when
I must--when the music, somehow, doesn't seem quite enough. When I--when
I"--she searched for a word, then finished abruptly--"oh, I can't tell you
about it--it's just something you feel--there are no words for it. When I
first come to the mountains,--after living in Fairlands all winter,--I
always dance--the mountains feel so big and strong. And sometimes I dance
in the moonlight--when it feels so soft and light and clean; or in the
twilight--when it's so still, and the air is so--so full of the day that
has come home to rest and sleep; and sometimes when I am away up under the
big pines and the wind, from off the mountain tops, under the sky, sings
through the dark branches."

"But don't you ever dance to please your friends?"

"Oh, no--I don't dance to _please_ any one--only just when it's for
myself--when nothing else will do--when I _must_. Of course, sometimes,
Myra or Brian Oakley or Mrs. Oakley are with me--but they don't matter,
you know. They are so much a part of me that I don't mind."

"I wonder if you will ever dance for me?"

Again, she shook her head. "I don't think so. How could I? You see, you
are not like anybody that I have ever known."

"But I saw you the other evening, you remember."

"Yes, but I didn't know you were there. If I had known, I wouldn't have
danced."

All the while--as she talked--her fingers had been busy with the slender,
willow branches. "And now"--she said, abruptly changing the subject, and
smiling as she spoke--"and now, you must turn back to your work."

"But the light is not right," he protested.

"Never mind, you must pretend that it is," she retorted. "Can't you
pretend?"

To humor her, he obeyed, laughing.

"You may look, now," she said, a minute later.

He turned to see her standing close beside him, holding out a charming
little basket that she had woven of the green willows and decorated with
moss and watercress. In the basket, on the cool, damp moss, and lightly
covered w