ak in you. You are that excitable
to-night!"

"Let me be so then. It's myself, for the moment whatever it is. But now
I'll be quiet. Now we'll talk. Have you had a hard day? Oh, and did
your head bother you again?"

"No, things were a little easier down town to-day. But that queer
feeling in my head did come back as I was coming home--and my head
aches a little now, besides."

"Your head aches!" she exclaimed. "Let me do something for it. And I've
been making it worse with all my foolishness."

"No, no; that's all right," he assured her. "I tell you what we'll do.
I'll lie down here a bit, and you play something for me. Something
quiet. I get so tired down there in La Salle Street, Laura, you don't
know."

And while he stretched out at full length upon the couch, his wife, at
the organ, played the music she knew he liked best--old songs, "Daisy
Dean," "Lord Lovell," "When Stars Are in the Quiet Sky," and "Open Thy
Lattice to Me."

When at length she paused, he nodded his head with pleasure.

"That's pretty," he said. "Ah, that is blame pretty. Honey, it's just
like medicine to me," he continued, "to lie here, quiet like this, with
the lights low, and have my dear girl play those old, old tunes. My old
governor, Laura, used to play that 'Open the Lattice to me,' that and
'Father, oh, Father, Come Home with me Now'--used to play 'em on his
fiddle." His arm under his head, he went on, looking vaguely at the
opposite wall. "Lord love me, I can see that kitchen in the old
farmhouse as plain! The walls were just logs and plaster, and there
were upright supports in each corner, where we used to measure our
heights--we children. And the fireplace was there," he added, gesturing
with his arm, "and there was the wood box, and over here was an old
kind of dresser with drawers, and the torty-shell cat always had her
kittens under there. Honey, I was happy then. Of course I've got you
now, and that's all the difference in the world. But you're the only
thing that does make a difference. We've got a fine place and a mint of
money I suppose--and I'm proud of it. But I don't know.... If they'd
let me be and put us two--just you and me--back in the old house with
the bare floors and the rawhide chairs and the shuck beds, I guess we'd
manage. If you're happy, you're happy; that's about the size of it. And
sometimes I think that we'd be happier--you and I--chumming along
shoulder to shoulder, poor an' working hard, than making bi