ading all, was their joy in
each other. Hers was a nature essentially childlike; his very infirmity
rendered him in experience less than a child; and so, devoid of worldly
wisdom,--like Earth's first pair of lovers, without knowledge of good or
evil,--all unconsciously they entered their Eden.

One sultry Sunday afternoon they sat within the vine-clad veranda, the
strains of the violin and guitar blending on the languorous, perfumed
air. As the last notes died away Kate exclaimed,--

"I never had any one accompany me who played with so much expression.
You give me an altogether different conception of a piece of music; you
seem to make it full of new meaning."

"And why not?" Darrell inquired. "Music is a language of itself, capable
of infinitely more expression than our spoken language."

"Who is speaking, then, when you play as you did just now--the soul of
the musician or your own?"

"The musician's; I am only the interpreter. The more perfect the harmony
or sympathy between his soul, as expressed in the music, and mine, the
truer will be the rendering I give. A fine elocutionist will reveal the
beauties of a classic poem to hundreds who, of themselves, might never
have understood it; but the poem is not his, he is only the poet's
interpreter."

"If you call that piece of music which you have just rendered only an
interpretation," Kate answered, in a low tone, "I only wish that I could
for once hear your own soul speaking through the violin!"

Darrell smiled. "Do you really wish it?" he asked, after a pause,
looking into the wistful brown eyes.

"I do."

She was seated in a low hammock, swinging gently to and fro. He sat at a
little distance from her feet, on the topmost of the broad stairs, his
back against one of the large, vine-wreathed columns, Duke stretched
full length beside him.

A slight breeze stirred the flower-scented air and set the pines
whispering for a moment; then all was silent. With eyes half closed,
Darrell raised the violin and, drawing the bow softly across the
strings, began one of his own improvisos, the exquisite, piercing
sweetness of the first notes swelling with an indescribable pathos until
Kate could scarcely restrain a cry of pain. Higher and higher they
soared, until above the clouds they poised lightly for an instant, then
descended in a flood of liquid harmonies which alternately rose and
fell, sometimes tremulous with hope, sometimes moaning in low undertones
of grief,