hours with his dreams, creative and subjective, in her
garden. For the most part they were dreams of unheard melodies, for Mark
Faraday was a composer. So little of his life had been spent in his own
country that outside the garden he felt less at home in America than in
Florence or Vienna. Yet place mattered little to him. An artist and a
creator, his kingdom was within. Of his environment he demanded only
harmony and space.

A bee buzzed into the open heart of a rose, bending it with his weight.
A little breeze wafted its perfume toward him. His eyes wandered over
the delicate, riotous color of the sweet-pea hedge and rested in content
upon the mignonette border. A circular path of white gravel surrounded
the grass plot about the dial. From it as a center curved paths wandered
outward dividing the flower-beds. The flowers were planted without much
regularity except for the borders of four o'clock and mignonette. It was
this spot that had inspired Mark's song cycle, "The Sun-dial." A certain
quality of youth and freshness as natural as a spring in the woods had
won for it quick recognition. Mark's artistic tendency was not exotic.
Although not retrogressive, he had drunk deep at the springs of Bach,
Schubert, and Mozart, and the basis of his work was sound.

Alone in the fragrant silence, he began dreaming sounds. The notes
of the bee's drone, one high, one low, combining in uneven rhythm,
had given him a suggestion for an accompaniment. His mind was far
away, working out his pattern of harmony, when another sound, actual,
familiar, broke into his reverie--the preliminary chords of one of
the songs of his "Sun-dial" cycle, "Youth and Crabbed Age." Then a
woman began to sing. It was Stella's voice; he recognized it at once,
pleasant, sufficiently trained. Stella was a fair musician and was
fond of trying over new music, but to-day she was playing in a more
musicianly manner than he had believed her capable of playing. He
had expected that his aunt would ask her over for tea. He enjoyed
the girl's companionship. He had not known many of his own countrywomen.
Their naturalness and freedom from the personal attitude of the
Continental woman interested him. It was perhaps this quality in
Stella that most appealed to him. He was aware that his Aunt Lucretia
hoped for a romantic conclusion to the friendship. He himself had given
the matter an occasional thought. Yet somehow Stella's definiteness
left no room for the imaginat