p in his low chair, knees crossed, eyes half
closed, drawing from the keyboard the chords which carried to each one the
message of his own heart.

Presently, Clara Conrad rose, and, standing back of the piano, leaning
over it, her hands clasped, began to sing--softly and easily--her voice, a
rich contralto, blending with Herrick's small but exquisite baritone, in
an old song. Polly looked at Hard, seated in a dim corner, his chin
resting on his hand, his eyes fixed on the two at the piano. She wondered
what he was thinking and what the woman meant to him. There was something
almost too intimate about the whole scene and she was glad when Scott rose
and went toward the door, speaking to her as he passed her.

"Want to see a pretty sight?" he said. She nodded and followed him out.
For miles in front of them stretched the hilly country, dotted here and
there in the half light by clumps of trees and bushes showing inky black
in the night, while in the distance stretched the mountains, irregular,
dark, and mysterious looking. Over all shone the moon, while the
stars--but who can describe the stars in a desert country?

"Makes you feel like you'd never seen stars before, doesn't it?" asked
Scott, as the girl stood, drinking in the scene.

"Doesn't it? So many, so bright and so twinkly! Do you know, I don't
wonder that Mrs. Conrad's rather a wonderful woman--living all the time
with this."

"Well, she is, rather. She's had a hard life, too; lots of trouble."

"Wasn't her husband--I mean, weren't they happy together?" asked the
girl.

"Why, yes, I guess they were," replied Scott, cautiously. "I reckon they
were like most married folks, rubbed along together pretty well."

"But you said she'd had lots of trouble."

Scott smiled. "And you made up your mind right off that it was a love
affair, eh? You're a good deal of a kid, aren't you?"

Polly flushed. "I think you're rather inconsiderate," she said, crossly.
"You start up my curiosity and then you make fun of me. I don't think I
like the way you treat me, most of the time."

"I don't think it's fair, myself," said Scott, penitently. "I suppose a
girl brought up as you've been oughtn't to be blamed for seeing a love
affair behind every bush."

"Why do you say brought up as I've been?"

"I mean having everything easy; everything done for you. No real hard
knocks in life."

"Oh, well, if that's all, I'll probably have hard knocks enough before I
get through. Most