Hilda liked him immensely, and was always ready to hear his unique experiences by land and by sea. She laughed till the tears streamed down her cheeks, for Holles had quite his own method of narrating. He told her, too, of his famous feud with the ear-trumpet lady, and how he had refused to work for her because he preferred not to be watched through an opera-glass. “Ben does not mind being watched through an opera-glass,” he said, “and I believe Bob rather likes it. But, even if I were on the verge of starvation, I would not work on such infamous conditions. No; I still have some lingering sense of dignity, and that wretched old woman will never have the benefit of my valuable services. But there! I forgot she was a friend of yours and had lent you her piano. Does she come and listen to you through an opera-glass?” “She came once,” answered Hilda, “but she did not ask me to play, and she was particularly kind about the piano, and told me to keep it as long as I pleased. She is away now, but when she returns, I must go and see her.” “Well, I think all the better of her,” said Holles, brightly. “Perhaps I will work for her.” Then he told Hilda he was passionately fond of music, and he asked her to play for him. “I have never cared for anything so much as for music,” he said gently. “It always had a mysterious influence over me. Do you know, I believe it appeals to the best part of us. Sometimes when I’ve been in the back-country knocking about and not knowing where I was going next, a most painful yearning for music has come over me, and I have positively suffered from the deprivation. At moments like that, it is an awful thing to be cut off from all possibility of easing one’s longing.” Hilda made no answer. She touched the key-board, and after hesitating, she played some dainty old French gavotte. She followed it up with a mazurka by Godard. “Did you like that?” she asked. Jesse’s face had fallen. He looked unsatisfied. “Play me something sad now,” he said. “That is the music one cares for most, because it is the truest, I suppose.” Her fingers wandered aimlessly over the notes. “I don’t know that I can play anything sad to you,” she said quietly. [Illustration: “HILDA AT THE WINDOW.”] “Why not?” he asked shyly, for her manner had suddenly intimidated him. “Because I don’t believe I dare trust myself,” she said, more to herself than to him. She struck a few chords and began one of Chopin’s Nocturnes. She broke off abruptly, rose from the piano, and went to the window. When she turned round again Holles had gone. He had understood. But out on the ranch, Ben and Bob looked at each other when they heard the strains of music, and Bob’s face was aglow with pleasure. Ben was glad too. “My little wife has gone back to her music,” Bob said. “Now all will be well with her. I feel as though things were going on better, and as though she were not fretting so much for the old country.” Then the music ceased abruptly.