clasped behind him, and nodded mysteriously at them, as he looked toward the young couple in the other part of the room. He went to his cupboard and took from it a little blue and white teapot, and a queer tea caddy, and brought them over to Dorothy.

'Will you make the old man a cup of tea, Miss Dorothy? Tom and I often have a bite together alone; but now, if you will make the tea for us, it will taste all the better, and then, if you will, afterwards we will have Bonnie Doon' again."

Peter had an oil-stove, and Tom Dean watched Dorothy's slim figure with undisguised admiration, as she moved energetically about, making the tea and spreading a cloth on the little table with the twisted black legs.

"If we only had some flowers," she sighed, "we would have quite a feast! Wait a moment--I will go to my room and bring some cakes I bought to-day. It will be nice to have our supper together."

As the door shut, Dean took up his hat. "I'll be back in a moment," he said.

As Dorothy came back with the cake, Tom Dean also returned with a bunch of fresh tea roses.

May I give you some roses?"

Dorothy's face flushed; she never knew before how handsome brown eyes could look.

She put the flowers in a glass on the table, first taking out a couple of buds and pinning them at her throat. They sat down to their light supper a merry party.

Dean talked in a light, satirical manner, which Dorothy admired, yet only half approved. He was a young fellow who had knocked around the world in a careless sort of fashion. He was a man of impulses; it depended upon accident whether good or evil was dominant. He was a newspaper writer by profession, and had stumbled upon Peter Vox during a hunt for items. Attracted by his oddity, he formed quite a friendship with him; and now here was

Dorothy Vane, more new material for him.

Dorothy possessed a serious, earnest way, which was very attractive to Tom Dean, to whom human nature and the world generally was somewhat worn out.

"What are you going to do with your life, Miss Vane?" he asked, as she poured out a second cup of tea for him.

Dorothy's eyes sparkled.

"If I have voice enough, I am going to be a great musician. I should like to be a great singer."

"I have heard scores of young women start out with ambitions"-Dean laughed sarcastically. "When they begin it is always art. Pretty soon some fellow comes along-art flies out of the window when love comes in at the door."

"Art is surely above love."

"To those who conquer, yes.' Dean stopped as he looked at her. "But Miss Dorothy, such knowledge, and the perfection of art, comes through pain."

"Hoot, man," Peter exclaimed impatiently, as he rose from the table. "What tales are ye telling the lassie? Don't listen to him-these newspaper peoples' trade is making up lies."

Dorothy put the dishes away, like a careful housewife. The twilight entered the room, and she leaned back in her chair and sang over again the old song.

When she finished, both men were silent. A tear trembled in old Peter's eye, as he stroked the breast of a dead bird on the table, and Dorothy quietly glided from the room, like a gray ghost.

Dean rose, and there was a huskiness in his voice as he said, "God bless her."

Peter Vox was left alone. He looked at the owls in the dusk and said half to them, repeating Dorothy's words, "Art is surely above love," and then he sighed.

Day after day passed. Dorothy was cheerful and happy. She was taking singing lessons, and had obtained a place in a small church choir, thereby increasing her

salary.

Her days were busy and bright. She had formed a friendship with Bessie Everding, who was very kind to her. She gave her many musical treats, in the shape of concerts and operas, and Tom Dean somehow or other always dropped in at all of these places.

"Newspaper men have to be around everywhere," he explained to Dorothy; and he was always ready to escort her home.

Every evening she spent some time with old Peter. She fell into the habit of making his tea for him; he liked to have her about; and then days when his hand was shaky, she would help him at his work. She grew to be quite an expert; although she never liked the work.

Dorothy was very happy that fall when she had saved up enough money to rent a little sitting-room next to her bedroom, and put a piano in it. In honor of the new piano she made a gala night, and Bessie Everding, Tom Dean, and old Peter Vox came up to have a little supper with her.

Tom and Dorothy were engaged; but they kept it a secret, because the time looked so far off when they would be able to marry. Dorothy no longer thought art above love, for her heart was so filled with Tom that there wasn't even a corner left for anything else. She sang because Tom liked it. It soothed him in the evening, after things had gone wrong during the day. She no longer regarded music as a height to aspire to, but as a sort of soothing syrup for Tom.

Tom loved her, but she was a little too serious for him. At times, he thought it would be charming to live in a garret with only a crust, provided he could share it with Dorothy. At other times, he upbraided the world for not giving him of its wealth, and he fancied Dorothy in silk attire.

They were all in Dorothy's new room. Tom was bending over Bessie, looking into her laughing blue eyes and paying her devoted attention. He looked at Dorothy in

her gray dress (she always wore gray, because it turned well and didn't spot easily), and then at Bessie Everding, in a Paris confection of pink and blue.

For the time being, Dorothy suffered by comparison. She had worked hard that day, and was pale; while pretty Bessie had taken a refreshing nap before she came out ; and her round cheeks were flushed a pretty pink.

"Life is a sort of hallucination after all. You imagine untold bliss until your eyes are opened." Dean laughed half bitterly.

"And then behold ashes and Dead Sea fruit," old Peter croaked as he took up Dean's words.

"It's a sort of heyday holiday with me," pretty Bessie chirped. "I skim through things, so you see I have the cream."

"Good philosophy!" Dean exclaimed. Dorothy laughed, as she looked at the sunny-haired girl opening and shutting a dainty, useless fan. She dropped the fan. Dean stooped to pick it up, and as he handed it back to her there was an expression of ardent admiration in his eyes.

Dorothy saw the glance, and turned. quickly around and busied herself with the tea table.

Bessie sat down at the piano and rattled off bits of gay French songs. Tom Dean leaned over the piano, regarding the pretty singer with rapt attention.

"Good night, Tom," Dorothy said sadly,

as he escorted Bessie down stairs to her carriage.

She was glad they were all gone. She closed the new piano, and sat down to think. She had been so happy all these weeks; and now was it to end? she questioned.

Morning did not brush the cobwebs away. She woke with a headache.

Weeks passed, and at times Tom was more devoted than ever; and then days would go by and she would not see him.

Her teacher told her that her voice needed a rest; so she was forced to give up

her music for a while. She grew pale and thin. Tom did not seem to notice it, but old Peter saw something was amiss-he could not tell what. He consulted with the owls; but their wisdom, poor birds, was only silence.

One day, in a fever of unrest, she went down to old Peter's room. "Can't you give me something to do?" she asked.

"I'm glad to see you," he said. "I must be off this afternoon, and I want these robins finished-just put natural-like, on some twigs, under a glass case. You'll find the wire and moss in the pine table drawer," he said as Dorothy helped him on with his

overcoat.

"All right; I will fix them very artistically."

She sat down at her work, and her thoughts were very busy; they were about Tom.

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Perhaps I have been cross when I was tired, and it has been my fault; I haven't been cheerful lately, and Tom works so hard, it must be depressing." Tom hadn't been near her for over a week.

"Perhaps he will come this afternoon-' She heard a step in the hall. Her heart beat fast--she knew that step so well. Tom Dean knocked and entered.

"Where is Peter?" he asked in a constrained tone.

"He has gone out." Dorothy smiled sweetly. "I am keeping guard over the owls this afternoon."

She did not leave her seat, because she expected him to come to her.

He walked to the other end of the room, and fingered the bits of china.

The color burned in Dorothy's cheeks. She smiled to herself. "The dear old fellow is repentant, and has come back to be forgiven, and doesn't like to speak first. I'll punish him a little longer."

She bent over her work more closely, but mischievously glanced up at his tall figure once in a while. He was standing with his

"What's

Dorothy looked frightened. the matter, Tom? Come, sit down and tell me all your trouble."

He did not move or turn toward her.

"You make a man mad with your soft ways," he began savagely. "I'm a fool and an idiot, and I wish you would do me the pleasure of calling me both. The fact is, I might just as well out with it in plain words. I've been getting myself in the deuce of a tangle."

"Can I help you?" Dorothy asked in a pitying tone.

"I can't do it," he muttered, and started to reach his hat.

Dorothy put her hand on his arm to detain him, and said firmly, "Tom, you must tell me what you came to tell."

She looked up at him earnestly. He avoided her eyes and looked away, while he nervously twirled his hat around in his hand.

"Well, I don't know how it happened; but I was honest when I told you I loved you. Dorothy started. He went on mechanically, one word tumbling after the other as if when once started he was anxious to tell his story and end it.

"You were too good for me, and I thought I would never suit you, but I loved you."

Dorothy winced; a fleeting expression of joy came into her face for a moment, as if saying, "You can not rob me of that."

"Bessie Everding came with her bewitching ways, and before I knew it we both cared for each other. We were all

three miserable. I felt like a brute, and I thought it best to come to you like a man and tell you the truth.

"Yes, it was best," she answered in a mechanical manner.

She felt as if it was somebody else who was sitting there listening and speaking.

"Good bye, Dorothy," he said awkardly, holding out his hand. "No doubt you are very glad to rid yourself of such a bad bargain. God grant you may find a man who is more worthy of you than I am," he said reverently, as he took her hand, bent over it, and kissed it.

The hand was cold as ice. She had risen, and as he said the last words, she swayed as if she would fall, but caught herself in time, and said, "Good bye," in the same mechanical manner.

He left the room with a sigh of relief and went to tell Bessie how well he got over the ordeal, and how easily Dorothy took it.

"I don't believe she cared much," he said, as he smoothed Bessie's yellow curls. "I don't know," Bessie said uneasily, "these quiet people are awfully deep."

After Dean left the room, Dorothy stood still for a moment. The place seemed to swim and grow dark. She clutched at a chair for support, but fell across the straw lounge.

old

She sat down in a low chair by the window, and rested her head on her hand. With dry, wide, staring eyes she sat there, far into the night.

She could not understand that love does not always last. She could not believe that the end of all had come. "What have I done to deserve it?" she moaned, covering her face with her hands, "and the fault must be with me."

They had planned their future together, never thinking of pretty Bessie Everding. Now Bessie Everding had it all. "It is not just," she cried in rebellion.

Day after day dragged wearily on. Dorothy felt like an automaton, merely sleeping, eating, and teaching from habit.

One night she came home unusually tired. She had grown pale and thin in the last few weeks. She stopped, as was her custom, at old Peter's room, to make his tea for him.

She went to the cupboard for the tea things.

66

Lassie," old Peter called to her, "Would you mind sitting with me awhile to-night? Lassie"-he looked away and cleared his throat. "I have watched lately, and seen that your heart was sore troubled. Your father and mother are gone, and there is no one belonging to you to do for you, and I hope you will pardon an old man who loves you dearly, for speaking out." He cleared his throat again.

"There is something troubling you, and I have found it out." He looked at her keenly. "There's no use in hiding sorrow and letting it gnaw out your heart. It's better out with it. Believe me." The old man went to her and took her hand, and stroked it tenderly, as if it had been a dove's breast. "I've read a heap in my time. When I was a lad, they called me a scholar. I've read how it was always this way, from heathen times down."

Dorothy's head sank lower. It seemed to her as if the shame of it would kill her.

"You

Dorothy looked at him steadily. have been very kind to me in my lonely life, but if you say another word against him, our friendship must cease."

"He is to be married to-night." "Married!" She sank down on the old lounge, and great tears came to her eyes; her whole frame shook with sobs,

Old Peter walked to and fro; such grief was beyond words of comfort. After a while the sobs ceased. She rose and went to the old man.

he followed her to the door, "surely art is above love."

The autumn days dragged on, then winter, and finally spring came, as it always does, like a resurrection of happiness.

One night in early April, a fashionable theater was filled to overflowing. A concert, with a new singer, was in progress on the stage. It was a concert given in aid of some popular charity, and the boxes and dress-circle were filled with the fashion of the city.

An old, bent man occupied one of the stage boxes, a man who watched the stage with almost catlike eagerness.

At last the evening was over. The old man stayed behind. The audience criticized as they passed into the street.

"It is a voice with a mellow timbre," a musician said to his friend.

"It is a voice that echoes in every tone a broken heart, an undying sorrow," his friend, who was a poet, answered.

A pretty little woman, with sunny curls, who was walking behind them, leaned over and said to her husband, with a half-embarrassed laugh:

"Dorothy Vane is going to be the rage.” The man threw away the cigar which he had just lighted, and the poet heard something very like a sigh as he turned around. in the darkness to speak to his friend. Mary Willis Glascock.

Charles S. Greene.