"Well, now, ma'am, when us fellers was talkin' it over, it always seemed to us, somehow, like the Annie Laurie coschume was right _white_." He blushed and hastened to apologize. "Not sayin' anything against that dress you've got on," he said. "I never saw one as fine as that in all my life. I never saw any woman, never in all my life, like you. I--I--ma'am"--he flushed, but went on with a Titanic simplicity--"I _worship_ you, right where you stand, in that there dress; but--could you--" "You are an artist yourself!" cried she. "Yes! Wait!" In an instant she was gone from the room, leaving Tom Osby staring at the flickering fire, now brighter in the advancing shades of evening. In perhaps half an hour Alice Strowbridge reappeared. The rich black laces, and the ripe red rose, and the blazing jewels, all were gone. She was clad in simple white--and yes! a blue sash was there. The piled masses of her hair were replaced by two long, glossy braids. By the grace of the immortal gods all misdeeds were lifted from her that night. For once in many years she was sincere. Now she was a girl again, and back at the old home. Those were the southern mountains half hidden in the twilight; and yonder was the moon of the old days, swinging up again. There was the gallery at the window of the old Georgia home, and the gate, and the stairs, and the hedgerow, and the trailing vines, and the voices of little birds; and Youth--Youth, the unspeakable glory of Youth--it all was hers once more! The souls of a thousand Georgia mocking-birds--the soul of that heritage which came to her out of her environment--lay in her throat that hour. And so, not to an audience, but to an auditor--nay, perhaps, after all, to the audience of Heart's Desire, an audience of unsated souls--she sang, although of visible audience there was but one man, who sat crumpled up, shaken, undone.