"That's all right--we agree with you--we'll go in your wild scheme if you can find some other fools too--only, I say Dud, before you beat it just sing a couple things, will you? You might be gone six months instead of three and that's too long between songs. I know you aren't singing and you haven't any voice and all that, but just a couple to show there's no hard feeling--those things you used to--the one that the darkey boy wrote--that Dunbar chap--'The Sum'--and that other one--" Others added to the appeal. Some one objected. Felicia caught a brief glimpse of a tall figure, over-coat on arm, the doorway, and a hand pulling him back. But on he came, protesting vibrantly that he never sang any more. He looked up toward the figure on the stairs, "I believe I'll run up to say Howdy and Good-by to your Uncle Peter--" One step, two steps he had ascended before she could actually see him. Then with her heart in her eyes she looked to him--he was so tall, so broad shouldered, so superb in his ruddy blondeness! "Oh, Dudly Hamilt!" her lips moved. But she leaned back against the shadow of the curtains as he drew nearer. He was so close she could touch him, he was so close that at last he saw her--that is he saw a little drab person whose figure was lost in a caped coat. "Beg pardon," he murmured--and passed her-- She buried her face in her hands. She was too weak to move. She was still sitting with her face thus hidden when he came down the stairway a moment later, calling back to the invalid, "You'll be as good as ever when it's summer--" The others were waiting for him at the foot of the stairway. "Un-cle Pe-ter-" called Freddie Alden, "ask Dud to sing 'Who Knows' for you." Uncle Peter did. And so with her pulse racing madly, with her throat so dry it seemed as though she could not breathe, Felicia Day sat and listened, listened with her trembling hand over her mouth to keep her lips from crying out. Listened to the first firm chords as Dudley Hamilt's long fingers moved over the keys, listened as he began to sing. He wasn't using very much voice, just enough to let the melody ring upward to Uncle Peter, round and smooth and inexpressibly caressing. He wasn't singing as though it mattered especially what he sang, indeed at first the phrasing was careless. But presently his voice soared more freely, it grew vibrant with longing. "Thou art the soul of a summer's day, Thou art the breath of a rose; But the summer is fled and the rose is dead; Where are they gone, who knows, who knows? "Thou art the blood of my heart of hearts, Thou art my soul's repose; But my heart's grown numb and my soul is dumb--" The song stopped abruptly. "Sorry. Can't sing it.--'Night, Uncle Peter. 'Night everybody--" A door banged.