eight and looked him full in the face with a beautiful
stateliness in her manner and glance. Her dark eyes never left his and
she seemed waiting for him to say something further to her.

"You know without my telling you how very glad I am for you," he said
gently and his hand trembled on the window ledge.

"Are you?" she asked in a low tone, still with her eyes fixed on his
face, but her lips pressed close with a sharp intake of breath.

"Yes," he answered quickly, and this time the note of pain would sound
clearly in his voice. "Yes, no matter what it means to me!"

The pain of it, the haggard gray eyes, the firm young mouth and the
droop of the broad shoulders were too much for the singer girl and she
smiled shakily as she held out her arms.

"Tom Mayberry," she pleaded with a little laugh, "please, please don't
treat me this way. I promised your mother to be stern with you but--I
can't! Don't you see that it can only mean to me what it means to your
happiness--if--do you, could you possibly think it would make any
difference to me? Do you suppose for all the wide world I would throw
away what I have found here in Providence under Harpeth Hills--my
Mother and you? Ah, Tom, I'll be good, I'll go to Italy and India with
you! I'll--I'll 'do for' you just the best I can!"

"But, dear, it isn't right at all," whispered the young Doctor to the
back of the singer lady's head, as he laid his cheek against the dark
braids. "Your voice belongs to the world--there must be no giving it
up. I can't let you--I--"

"Listen," said the singer girl as she raised her head and looked up
into his face. "For all your life you will have to go where pain and
grief call you, won't you? Can't you take my voice with you and use
it--as one of your--remedies? Your Mother says songs can comfort where
words fail; let me go with you! Your father brought her and her herb
basket to Providence, won't you take me and my songs out into the world
with you? Don't send me back to sing in the dreadful crowded theaters
to people who pay to hear me. Let me give it all my lifelong, as she
has given herself here in Providence. Please, Tom, please!" And again
she buried her head against his coat.

And as was his wont, the silent young doctor failed to answer a single
word but just held her close and comforted. And how long he would have
held her, there is no way to know, because the strain had been too
great on Mother Mayberry and in a few minutes she sto