e high invitation of the
mountains, "Come ye apart," ceased to echo in his ears. The world
environed, encompassed her; he seemed to discern the yearning of her
spirit for it, the airy rush of her winged feet toward it; and yet her
eyes, those eyes which sometimes held the look of having gazed for ages
on time's mutations, were turned toward the desert. Then Seagreave's
moment of vision passed and he turned to Hugh with an odd sinking of the
heart.

Hugh had ceased to play and sat silent now on his piano stool with that
motionless, concentrated air of his, as if listening to something afar.

"Hughie," said Seagreave softly, "what _are_ you and your sister,
anyway?"

Hugh laughed and, leaning his elbow on the keys, rested his cheek on
his palm. "I am a little brother of the wind," he said. "I was just
listening to it singing to me out there; and Pearl, well, Pearl is a
daughter of fire."

"What is it that you hear that I don't?" asked Harry. "I listen to the
wind, too, sometimes for hours, up there in my cabin; but it's only a
falling, sighing thing to me, sometimes a rising, shrieking one. What is
this gift of music?"

"I don't know," said Hugh simply, "but if you will wait a moment, I will
play you the song the wind is singing through the pines to-night. It is
just a little, sad one."

Again he sat immobile, listening for a while and then began to play so
plaintive and wistful a melody that Harry felt the old sorrow wake and
stir within his heart and demand a reckoning of the forgetful years. Not
realizing that he did so, he arose and began to pace up and down the
room, nor remembered where he was until he looked up to see Pearl
watching him, surprise and even a slight curiosity upon her face.

"Forgive me," he said, stopping before her, "for walking up and down
that way as if I were in my own cabin, but something in Hugh's music set
me to dreaming."

"You didn't look as if they were happy dreams," she said.

"Didn't I?" he spoke as lightly as he could; then he changed the
subject. "Do you know that the crust on the snow is thicker than it has
been yet? How would you like to go out on your snow-shoes to-morrow
morning?"

She looked her pleasure. "That will be fine," she cried eagerly.

She was up betimes the next day, anxious to see whether more snow had
fallen during the night; but none had. To her joy, it was one of those
brilliant mornings when the sky seems a dome of sapphire sparkles, and
the crust o