ween his hot biscuit, as he had learned to do. His mother
would have flung up her hands in horror had she seen him doing this, or
could she have known how many such he had devoured since coming to
recuperate in these mountain wilds.

The home was very bare and simple, but sweet and clean, and love was in
it. To sit there for a while with the childlike young couple, enjoying
their home and their baby and the hospitality generously offered
according to their ability, warmed David's heart, and he rode away
happier than he came.

With mind absorbed and idle rein, he allowed his horse to stray as he
would, while his thoughts and memory played strange tricks, presenting
contrasting pictures to his inward vision. Now it was his mother reading
by the evening lamp, carelessly scanning a late magazine, only half
interested, her white hair arranged in shining puffs high on her head,
and soft lace--old lace--falling from open sleeves over her shapely
arms; and Laura, red-cheeked and plump, curled, feet and all, in a great
lounging chair, poring over a novel and yawning now and then, her dark
hair carelessly tied, with straight, straying ends hanging about her
face as he had many a time seen her after playing a game of hockey with
her active, romping friends.

His mother and Laura were the only ones at home now, since the big elder
brother was gone. Of course they would miss him and be sad sometimes,
but Laura would enjoy life as much as ever and keep the home bright with
youth. Even as he thought of them, the room faded and his own cabin
appeared as he had seen it the day before, through the open window, with
Cassandra moving about in her quiet, gliding way, haloed with light.
Again he would see a picture of another room, all white and gold, with
slight French chairs and tables, and couches and cushions, and
candelabra of quivering crystals, with pale green walls and gold-framed
paintings, and a great, three-cornered piano, massive and dark, where a
slight, fair girl sat idly playing tinkling music in keeping with
herself and the room, but quite out of keeping with the splendid
instrument.

He saw people all about her, chatting, laughing, sipping tea, and eating
thin bread and butter. He saw, as if from a distance, another man,
himself, in that room, standing near the piano to turn her music, while
the tinkling runs and glib, expressionless trills wove in and out, a
ceaseless nothing.

She spent years learning to do that, he