sphere
before I go into the meeting."

His father took the 'cello, and after a few moments spent in carefully
tuning up, began with Handel's immortal Largo, then he wandered into
the Adagio Movement in Haydn's third Sonata, from thence to Schubert's
Impromptu in C Minor, after which he began the Serenade, when he was
checked by his son.

"No, not that, dad, that's sickening. I consider that the most morally
relaxing bit of music that I know. It frays the whole moral fibre. Give
us one of Chopin's Ballades, or better still a bit of that posthumous
Fantasie Impromptu, the largo movement. Ah! fine! fine!"

He flung his dish-cloth aside, ran to the piano and began an
accompaniment to his father's playing.

"Now, dad, the Largo once more before we close." They did the Largo once
and again, then springing from the piano Barry cried: "That Largo is
a means of grace to me. There could be no better preparation for a
religious meeting than that. If you would only come in and play for
them, it would do them much more good than all my preaching."

"If you would only take your music seriously, Barry," replied his
father, somewhat sadly, "you would become a good player, perhaps even a
great player."

"And then what, dad?"

His father waved him aside, putting up his 'cello.

"No use going into that again, boy."

"Well, I couldn't have been a great player, at any rate, dad."

"Perhaps not, boy, perhaps not," said his father. "Great players are
very rare. But it is time for your meeting."

"So it is, dad. Awfully sorry I didn't finish up those dishes. Let them
go till I return. I wish you would, dad, and come along with me." His
voice had a wistful note in it.

"Not to-night, boy, I think. We will have some talk after. You will only
be an hour, you know."

"All right, dad," said Barry. "Some time you may come." He could not
hide the wistful regret of his tone.

"Perhaps I shall, boy," replied his father.

It was the one point upon which there was a lack of perfect harmony
between father and son. When the boy went to college it was with the
intention of entering the profession of law, for which his father had
been reading in his young manhood when the lure of Canada and her broad,
free acres caught him, and he had abandoned the law and with his wife
and baby boy had emigrated to become a land owner in the great Canadian
west.

Alas! death, that rude spoiler of so many plans, broke in upon the
sanctity and perfect pe