other violinist, and that was why his old
fiddle brought forth such weird and tender tones.

Almost to the end, with her heart sobbing its trouble to the keys,
Margaret looked up sadly, and there, straight before her through a hole
in the curtain made by some rash youth to glimpse the audience, or
perhaps even put there by the owner of the nose itself, she saw the
little, freckled, turned-up member belonging to Bud's face. A second
more and a big, bright eye appeared and solemnly winked at her twice, as
if to say, "Don't you worry; it's all right!"

She almost started from the stool, but kept her head enough to finish
the chords, and as they died away she heard a hoarse whisper in Bud's
familiar voice:

"Whoop her up, Miss Earle. We're all ready. Raise the curtain there, you
guy. Let her rip. Everything's O. K."

With a leap of light into her eyes Margaret turned the leaves of the
music and went on playing as she should have done if nothing had been
the matter. Bud was there, anyway, and that somehow cheered her heart.
Perhaps Gardley had come or Bud had heard of him--and yet, Bud didn't
know he had been missing, for Bud had been away himself.

Nevertheless, she summoned courage to go on playing. Nick Bottom wasn't
in this first scene, anyway, and this would have to be gone through with
somehow. By this time she was in a state of daze that only thought from
moment to moment. The end of the evening seemed now to her as far off as
the end of a hale old age seems at the beginning of a lifetime. Somehow
she must walk through it; but she could only see a step at a time.

Once she turned half sideways to the audience and gave a hurried glance
about, catching sight of Fudge's round, near-sighted face, and that gave
her encouragement. Perhaps the others were somewhere present. If only
she could get a chance to whisper to some one from the camp and ask
when they had seen Gardley last! But there was no chance, of course!

The curtain was rapidly raised and the opening scene of the play began,
the actors going through their parts with marvelous ease and dexterity,
and the audience silent and charmed, watching those strangers in queer
costumes that were their own children, marching around there at their
ease and talking weird language that was not used in any class of
society they had ever come across on sea or land before.

But Margaret, watching her music as best she could, and playing
mechanically rather than with her mi