up, I have to go. Do
I seem to enjoy it?"

Fred bent over her trunk and picked up something which proved to be a
score, clumsily bound. "What's this? Did you ever try to sing this?" He
opened it and on the engraved title-page read Wunsch's inscription,
"EINST, O WUNDER!" He looked up sharply at Thea.

"Wunsch gave me that when he went away. I've told you about him, my old
teacher in Moonstone. He loved that opera."

Fred went toward the fireplace, the book under his arm, singing
softly:--

"EINST, O WUNDER, ENTBLUHT AUF MEINEM GRABE,
EINE BLUME DER ASCHE MEINES HERZENS;"

"You have no idea at all where he is, Thea?" He leaned against the
mantel and looked down at her.

"No, I wish I had. He may be dead by this time. That was five years ago,
and he used himself hard. Mrs. Kohler was always afraid he would die off
alone somewhere and be stuck under the prairie. When we last heard of
him, he was in Kansas."

"If he were to be found, I'd like to do something for him. I seem to get
a good deal of him from this." He opened the book again, where he kept
the place with his finger, and scrutinized the purple ink. "How like a
German! Had he ever sung the song for you?"

"No. I didn't know where the words were from until once, when Harsanyi
sang it for me, I recognized them."

Fred closed the book. "Let me see, what was your noble brakeman's name?"

Thea looked up with surprise. "Ray, Ray Kennedy."

"Ray Kennedy!" he laughed. "It couldn't well have been better! Wunsch
and Dr. Archie, and Ray, and I,"--he told them off on his
fingers,--"your whistling-posts! You haven't done so badly. We've backed
you as we could, some in our weakness and some in our might. In your
dark hours--and you'll have them--you may like to remember us." He
smiled whimsically and dropped the score into the trunk. "You are taking
that with you?"

"Surely I am. I haven't so many keepsakes that I can afford to leave
that. I haven't got many that I value so highly."

"That you value so highly?" Fred echoed her gravity playfully. "You are
delicious when you fall into your vernacular." He laughed half to
himself.

"What's the matter with that? Isn't it perfectly good English?"

"Perfectly good Moonstone, my dear. Like the readymade clothes that hang
in the windows, made to fit everybody and fit nobody, a phrase that can
be used on all occasions. Oh,"--he started across the room
again,--"that's one of the fine things about your going! You'll