e good old tunes, reminiscent of younger days of mining-camps and
dance-halls, they played as fast as fingers could fly and bows could
scrape. "Dan Tucker," "Money Musk," "The Irish Washerwoman," and "Pop Goes
the Weasel" sifted in melodic molecules through the keyhole into the
curious and receptive ears outside. And after them came "Captain Jinks"
and "The Blue Danube," "Yankee Doodle" and "Dixie."

"Some boss!" muttered the magnate, thickly, the brierwood dropping on the
floor. "Just one solid streak of anthracite--clear through. Now give us
something else--I don't care--you choose it, boss."

So Leerie chose "The Star-spangled Banner" and "Marching Through Georgia,"
and as dusk crept closer about them, "Suwanee River" and "The Old Kentucky
Home."

"Nice, sleepy old tunes," mumbled the coal magnate. "Guess I've napped
over-time." He opened one eye and looked at Sheila, half amused, half
puzzled. "Say, boss, light up that little old lamp o' yours and take me
down; the shaft's growing pretty black."

The fiddlers played a hymn as their own final contribution. Sheila smiled
wistfully across the dusk to Peter. She knew it wouldn't matter now, for
Old King Cole was passing beyond the reach of hymns, prayers, or
benedictions.

"It's over as far as you or I or he are concerned," she whispered,
whimsically. "When I come down, by and by, would you very much mind taking
me on one of those rides you promised? I want to forget that white-marble
monument."

It was not until a week later that Sheila O'Leary met with one of the big
surprises of her rather eventful existence. A lawyer came down from New
York and asked for her. It seemed that the coal magnate had left her a
considerable number of thousands to spend for him and ease her feelings
about the monument. The codicil was quaintly worded and stated that
inasmuch as "Mother" had gone first, he guessed she would do the next best
by him.

Sheila took Peter Brooks into her immediate confidence. "Half of it goes
for typhoid research and half for a nurses' home here. We've needed one
dreadfully. What staggers me is when did he do it?"

Peter grinned. "When I happened to be on duty. We fixed it up, and I was
to keep the secret. He had lots of fun over it--poor old soul!"

"Merry old soul," corrected Sheila.

And when the nurses' home was built Sheila flatly ignored all the
suggestions of a memorial tablet with appropriate scriptural verses to
grace the cornerstone or hang