case, a piano and a banjo case.

"I like it," he said. "It's not cluttered up with a lot of junk.
Everything looks as if it could be used. That's what I like. Is that a
banjo and do you play it?"

"Yes, I play it."

"I like a banjo better than a piano."

"You Philistine! Why?"

"Perhaps because I'm a Philistine. I don't know just why. All I know is
that I _do_ like it better. A piano is sort of machine-made music to me;
but with a banjo the player seems to be making the music himself, as if
he was singing."

"You mean there is more personal expression."

"Maybe. I don't know anything about music. But a banjo seems to _talk_.
It's the thing for the tunes that everybody knows."

"You and Kipling agree, then. You know his 'Song of the Banjo':

"And the tunes that mean so much to you alone--
Common tunes that make you choke and blow your nose,
Vulgar tunes that bring the laugh that hides the groan--
I can rip your very heartstrings out with those."

"Yes, that's the idea. He's right enough there."

"And how about:

"'But the word, the word is mine
When the order moves the line,
And the lean, locked ranks go roaring down to die,'?"

she asked curiously.

"The only music to fight with and to die to is the pipes," Angus said.

"The pipes? You mean the bagpipes."

"Of course."

"Some people," Faith laughed, "would say that death would be a blessed
relief from the sound of them."

Angus smiled grimly. "I know. There are plenty of jokes about the pipes.
But they are no joke to the men who meet the men played into battle to
the skirl of them."

"I believe you are right in that," Faith admitted. "I haven't a drop of
Scotch blood, so far as I know. But I have heard a pipe band playing
'Lochaber No More' behind a gun carriage which bore a dead soldier; and
I have seen the Highland regiments march past the colors at a review, to
'Glendarual' and 'Cock o' the North,' and heaven knows what gatherings
and pibrochs, and I have stood up on my toes and my back hair has felt
crinkly. I own up to it. But I love the banjo. It's a little sister of
the lonesome."

She took the instrument, a beautiful concert model, from its case, keyed
it for a moment and spoke through low, rippling chords.

"Sometimes at night I pick it by the hour--oh, very softly, so as not to
disturb anybody--not any particular tune--just odds and ends,
anything--and my thoughts go away off wool gathering and I am quit