at touring-car. She had not wished to ride in it, but
had been told to, so that she might have the time to do some errands
and still get to her home on time.

"It is fine for you, up there, at the great house of Mrs. Vanderlyn,
eh, Anna?" said the old man after they had greeted one another
lovingly.

"But yes," said Anna, "it is pleasant. She is kind--oh, ve-ry kind;
but, father, I miss you! I miss you every day and every hour. Of
mornings, when I rise, I wonder what it is that you are having, down
here in the little home, for breakfast. I wonder if M'riarrr still is
thoughtful and remembers all that she has learned about the sweeping
and the scrrrubbing. I wonder how things went with you the night
before, in that grreat orchestra at that amusement park. Do they still
think the first-flute a gr-r-reat musician, father?"

He smiled. "At the garden none has, so far, made complaint about my
playing," he said slowly, "except that I am not quite willing,
sometimes, to play the music they seem best to like." He would not
have told her all the details of his battles against rag-time, for the
world. "It is music of the negroes, Anna. Er--er--syncopation. Ach!
_What_ syncopation! All right in its place, my dear, but a whole
evening of it! Ach, drives me--it grows tiresome, Anna."

"Some day, father, you will not play there," she said with emphasis.
"Some day will come fortune to us--some day."

"Yes; perhaps; some day. But there is something finer than a fortune,
Anna. I have been thinking, thinking, thinking, lately, of your
mother, Anna. How delighted she would be to see you, now, with your
dark hair! Why, Anna, it is almost black! So delighted she would be!
It was blonde when you were born--blonde, fair like mine, before mine
turned to white; but hers was dark, as yours is now, and I think that
when she saw that yours was light she was a little disappointed till
her old nurse told her that in early years her own hair had been as
yours was. You were one year old, my Anna, before your hair began to
show the brown."

"Do you like it, father?"

"Like it? Ah, I love it! But--I am worried."

"Worried?"

"Yes. Always in the past have I been with you. Now you are alone and
beautiful. And of life you know so little, while of love--you
know--ah, nothing!"

Anna was not sure of this. She had been wondering, indeed, if she did
not know much of it. It startled her to have her father speak of it.
There had been tremors in her