t was the
likeness of a beautiful woman.

For a moment David eyed him uncertainly; then he spoke.

"Daddy, who is that? Who are all these people in the pictures? You've
never told me about any of them except the little round one that you
wear in your pocket. Who are they?"

Instead of answering, the man turned faraway eyes on the boy and smiled
wistfully.

"Ah, David, lad, how they'll love you! How they will love you! But you
mustn't let them spoil you, son. You must remember--remember all I've
told you."

Once again David asked his question, but this time the man only turned
back to the photograph, muttering something the boy could not
understand.

After that David did not question any more. He was too amazed, too
distressed. He had never before seen his father like this. With nervous
haste the man was setting the little room to rights, crowding things
into the bag, and packing other things away in an old trunk. His cheeks
were very red, and his eyes very bright. He talked, too, almost
constantly, though David could understand scarcely a word of what was
said. Later, the man caught up his violin and played; and never before
had David heard his father play like that. The boy's eyes filled, and
his heart ached with a pain that choked and numbed--though why, David
could not have told. Still later, the man dropped his violin and sank
exhausted into a chair; and then David, worn and frightened with it
all, crept to his bunk and fell asleep.

In the gray dawn of the morning David awoke to a different world. His
father, white-faced and gentle, was calling him to get ready for
breakfast. The little room, dismantled of its decorations, was bare and
cold. The bag, closed and strapped, rested on the floor by the door,
together with the two violins in their cases, ready to carry.

"We must hurry, son. It's a long tramp before we take the cars."

"The cars--the real cars? Do we go in those?" David was fully awake now.

"Yes."

"And is that all we're to carry?"

"Yes. Hurry, son."

"But we come back--sometime?"

There was no answer.

"Father, we're coming back--sometime?" David's voice was insistent now.

The man stooped and tightened a strap that was already quite tight
enough. Then he laughed lightly.

"Why, of course you're coming back sometime, David. Only think of all
these things we're leaving!"

When the last dish was put away, the last garment adjusted, and the
last look given to the little room, the