ld Abel is amusing himself with his violin again," he thought. "What
a delicious thing he is playing! He has quite a gift for the violin. But
how can he play such a thing as that,--a battered old hulk of a man who
has, at one time or another, wallowed in almost every sin to which human
nature can sink? He was on one of his sprees three days ago--the
first one for over a year--lying dead-drunk in the market square in
Charlottetown among the dogs; and now he is playing something that only
a young archangel on the hills of heaven ought to be able to play. Well,
it will make my task all the easier. Abel is always repentant by the
time he is able to play on his fiddle."

Mr. Leonard was on the door-stone. The little black dog had frisked down
to meet him, and the gray cat rubbed her head against his leg. Old Abel
did not notice him; he was beating time with uplifted hand and smiling
face to Felix's music, and his eyes were young again, glowing with
laughter and sheer happiness.

"Felix! what does this mean?"

The violin bow clattered from Felix's hand upon the floor; he swung
around and faced his grandfather. As he met the passion of grief and
hurt in the old man's eyes, his own clouded with an agony of repentance.

"Grandfather--I'm sorry," he cried brokenly.

"Now, now!" Old Abel had risen deprecatingly. "It's all my fault, Mr.
Leonard. Don't you blame the boy. I coaxed him to play a bit for me. I
didn't feel fit to touch the fiddle yet myself--too soon after Friday,
you see. So I coaxed him on--wouldn't give him no peace till he played.
It's all my fault."

"No," said Felix, throwing back his head. His face was as white as
marble, yet it seemed ablaze with desperate truth and scorn of old
Abel's shielding lie. "No, grandfather, it isn't Abel's fault. I came
over here on purpose to play, because I thought you had gone to the
harbour. I have come here often, ever since I have lived with you."

"Ever since you have lived with me you have been deceiving me like this,
Felix?"

There was no anger in Mr. Leonard's tone--only measureless sorrow. The
boy's sensitive lips quivered.

"Forgive me, grandfather," he whispered beseechingly.

"You never forbid him to come," old Abel broke in angrily. "Be just, Mr.
Leonard--be just."

"I AM just. Felix knows that he has disobeyed me, in the spirit if not
in the letter. Do you not know it, Felix?"

"Yes, grandfather, I have done wrong--I've known that I was doing wrong
every