am?" asked Tom Osby, sinking back
into his seat. "I always did. They always remind me of the Smokies,
in Car'lina, back South."

"You came from the South?"

"Georgy, ma'am."

"Georgia! So did I! We should be friends," she said, and, smiling,
held out her hand. Tom Osby took it.

"Ma'am," said he, gravely, "I'm right glad to see you. I've not been
back home for a good many years. I've been all over."

"Nor have I been home," said she, sadly. "I've been all over, too.
But now, what brought you here? Tell me, did you want to see me?"

"Yes!" Tom Osby answered simply. "I said that's why I come!"

"You want me to come up to Heart's Desire to sing? Ah, I wish that
were not impossible."

"No, there's no one sent me," said Tom Osby. "Though, of course, the
boys would do anything for you they could. What we want in Heart's
Desire--why, sometimes I think it's nothing, and then, again,
everything. Maybe we didn't want any music; and then, again, maybe we
was just sick and pinin' for it, and didn't know it."

She looked at him intently as he bent his head, his face troubled.
"Listen," said he, at length, "I'll tell you all about it. Up at Vegas
I heard a funny sort of singin' machine. It had voices in it. Ma'am,
it had a Voice in it. It--it sung--" he choked now.

"And some of the songs?"

Strangely enough, he understood the question of her eyes. She flushed
like a girl as he nodded gravely. "'Annie Laurie,'" he said.

"I am very glad," said she, with a long breath. "It reconciles me to
selling my art in that way. No, I'm very glad, quite outside of that."

Tom Osby did not quite follow all her thoughts, but he went on.

"It was 'Annie Laurie,'" said he. "I knew you sung it. Ma'am, I
played her all the way from Vegas down."

"But why did you come?" She was cruel; but a woman must have her toll.
The renewed answer cost courage of Tom Osby.

"Ma'am," said he, "I won't lie to you. I just come to see you, or to
hear you, I can't rightly tell which. It must have been both." Now he
arose and flung out a hand, rudely but eloquently. "Ma'am," he went
on, "I knowed you come from Georgy onct, the same as me. And I knowed
that a Georgy girl, someway, somewhere, somehow, would have a soft spot
in her heart. I come to hear you sing. There's things that us fellers
want, sometimes."

The woman before him drew a deep, long breath.

"I reckon you'll have to sing again," the man went on. "You'll