r had a chance to talk. There is no room in the conversation
for any one else when her voluble parent unfurls his matchless
tongue. Martha cannot or does not talk for the same reason that
people that live in the dark in time lose the power to see, because
they haven't had it to do."

That night Arthur came over for his bread. The schoolmaster noticed
the sudden brightening of Martha's face when Arthur's knock sounded
on the door, and the animated, eager way in which she listened to
every word he said. There was a feeling of good-fellowship, too,
between them which did not escape the sharp eyes of the schoolmaster.
"Arthur likes her," he thought, "that's a sure thing; but I'm afraid
it's that brotherly, sort of thing that's really no good. But, of
course, time may bring it all right. He's thinking too much now of
the fair-haired Thursa. It's hard to begin a new song when the echoes
of the old song are still ringing in your ears."

Through the open doorway he could see Martha in the kitchen
filling the basket that Arthur had brought over for his bread. The
bread--three loaves--was put in the bottom, rolled in a snow-white
flour-sack; then she put in a roasted chicken, a fruit-cake and a jar
of cream.

"Strong arguments in your favour, Martha," the teacher said, smiling
to himself as he watched her.

"They are good, sensible, cogent arguments, every one of them,
Martha, and my own opinion is that you will win."

CHAPTER XXX

ANOTHER MATCH-MAKER

"Music waves eternal wands."

THE days went by pleasantly for the school-master, who became more
and more interested in Martha's struggle for an education. He spent
many of his evenings in directing her studies or in reading to her,
and Martha showed her gratitude in a score of ways. Pearl was
delighted with the turn events had taken, and before the month of
January had gone declared that she could see results. Martha was
learning.

There was one other person in the neighbourhood who was taking an
interest in Martha's case and was determined to help it along, and
that was Dr. Emeritus Emory, the music-teacher of the Souris valley.

Dr. Emory was a mystery, a real, live, undiscoverable mystery. All
that was really known of him was that he had come from England
several years before and worked as an ordinary farm-hand with a
farmer at the Brandon Hills. He was a steady, reliable man, very
quiet and reticent. That he knew anything about music was discovered
q