r dragged--Jack triumphantly to the new
grand piano, finally picking him up bodily and depositing him before
the keyboard, where he held him on the stool with the grip of a
sheriff, until this best of fellows raised his hands hopelessly and
smiled to his eager audience.

Few skilled pianists possessed Jack's touch; his playing was snappy
and sympathetic--it was gay, and invested with a swing and rhythm
that were irresistible. He had at his command a vast host of
memories--everything from a Hungarian "Czardas" to Grieg. He rippled
on fantastically, joining together the seemingly impossible by a
series of harmonic transitions entirely his own. His crisp execution
was as facile as that of a virtuoso; he did things contrary to even
the first principles found in the instruction books of the pianoforte.
He rushed from the Dance of the Sun Feast of the Sioux Indians,
through a passage of rag time into the tenderest of cradle songs that
emerged in turn, by an intricate series of harmonic byways, into the
trio from Faust and leaped, as a climax at a single bound, to the
Rakoczy March--the shrill war march of Hungary, the rhythm of which
stirs the blood and made men fight up hill with forty clarionets in
line in the days when the Magyar took all before him--a march that
brought the blood to Alice Thayor's cheeks and diffused a lazy
brilliancy in her eyes--eyes that looked at Sperry under their curved
lashes. Under its spell there welled within her an irresistible desire
to scream--to dance savagely until she swooned. The last chord was as
vibrant as the crack of a whip.

As for Holcomb, a strange happiness had come to him. He had heard
Alice voice her surprise at his ease of manner and good breeding. "He
is a gentleman, Sam; I never could have believed it," and his eyes had
lighted up when his employer had replied, "As well-bred as Jack,
my dear. I am glad to hear you acknowledge it at last." But even a
greater joy possessed him,--a happiness which he dared not speak
about or risk the danger of destroying. Margaret trusted him!--that in
itself was enough for the moment. She had a way of looking earnestly
into his eyes now--moments when he made awkward attempts at concealing
his joy. There was, too, a certain note of tenderness in her voice
when she spoke to him. That firm pressure of her soft little hand--her
tears! What had she meant by it? he wondered. She seemed a different
being to him now--divine--not of this world. When t