f his arms and a
jumble of broken English attempted to make her understand that he was
to take her where she undoubtedly wished to go. The woman still looked
uncomprehending, however, and David promptly came to the rescue, saying
a few rapid words that quickly brought a flood of delighted
understanding to the woman's face.

"Can't you ask her if she's hungry?" ventured Mrs. Holly, then.

"She says no, thank you," translated David, with a smile, when he had
received his answer. "But the boy says he is, if you please."

"Then, tell them to come into the kitchen," directed Mrs. Holly,
hurrying into the house.

"So you're French, are you?" said Simeon Holly to David.

"French? Oh, no, sir," smiled David, proudly. "I'm an American. Father
said I was. He said I was born in this country."

"But how comes it you can speak French like that?"

"Why, I learned it." Then, divining that his words were still
unconvincing, he added: "Same as I learned German and other things with
father, out of books, you know. Didn't you learn French when you were a
little boy?"

"Humph!" vouchsafed Simeon Holly, stalking away without answering the
question.

Immediately after dinner Perry Larson drove away with the woman and the
little boy. The woman's face was wreathed with smiles, and her last
adoring glance was for David, waving his hand to her from the porch
steps.

In the afternoon David took his violin and went off toward the hill
behind the house for a walk. He had asked Mrs. Holly to accompany him,
but she had refused, though she was not sweeping or dusting at the
time. She was doing nothing more important, apparently, than making
holes in a piece of white cloth, and sewing them up again with a needle
and thread.

David had then asked Mr. Holly to go; but his refusal was even more
strangely impatient than his wife's had been.

"And why, pray, should I go for a useless walk now--or any time, for
that matter?" he demanded sharply.

David had shrunk back unconsciously, though he had still smiled.

"Oh, but it wouldn't be a useless walk, sir. Father said nothing was
useless that helped to keep us in tune, you know."

"In tune!"

"I mean, you looked as father used to look sometimes, when he felt out
of tune. And he always said there was nothing like a walk to put him
back again. I--I was feeling a little out of tune myself to-day, and I
thought, by the way you looked, that you were, too. So I asked you to
go to walk."

"H