"Look you there, now!" Uncle Dan held out an open palm and traced on it with a stubby and triumphant finger. "Their fathers had served John Company, the Hudson Bay Company! And there you are linked back with two hundred years! 'John Company has a long arm,' they said; 'John Company lost a good man there!' How the name began is beyond my sure knowing; but it is in my mind that it goes back farther still, to the East India Company, to Clive and to Madras. Lyn, you are the bookman, I'll get you to look it up some of these--Lyn! Lyn! Charlie See! The young devils! Now wouldn't that jar you?" "A fool and his honey are soon started," observed Adam. "We're out here, Uncle Dan; all nice and comfy. There's a moon. And itty-bitsy stars," answered a soothing voice--Charlie See's--from the porch. "Oodles of stars. How I wonder what they are. G'wan, Uncle Dan--tell us about the East India Company now." Hobby Lull rose tragically and bestowed a withering glance upon Uncle Dan. "You old fat fallacy with an undistributed middle--see what you've done now! You and your John Company! Go to bed! Forbes, you brought this man See. You go home!" "Overlook it this one time," urged Forbes. "Don't send us away--the girls are going to sing. Forgive us all both, and I'll get rid of See to-morrow." "Be sure you do, then. Lyn! Come here to me." "Don't shoot, colonel, I'll come down," said Lyn. Her small face was downcast and demure. Charlie See came tiptoe after her and sidled furtively to the fire. "Sing, then," commanded Hobby. He brought the guitars and gave one to each girl. The coals glowed on the hearth; side by side, the fair head and the brown bent at the task of tuning. That laughing circle was scattered long ago and it was written that never again should all those friendly faces gather by any hearthfire--never again. It has happened so many, many times; even to you and to me, so many, many times! But we learn nothing; we are still bitter, and hard, and unkind--with kindness so cheap and so priceless--as if there was no such thing as loss or change or death. And because of some hours of your own, it is hoped you will not smile at the songs of that lost happy hour. They were old-fashioned songs; indeed, it is feared they might almost be called Victorian. Their bourgeois simplicity carried no suggestive double meaning. "When other lips and other hearts"--that was what they sang, brown Lyn and white Edith. Kirkconnel Lea they sang, and Jeanie Morrison, and Rosamond: _Rose o' the world, what man would wed When he might dream of your face instead?_ Folly? Perhaps. Perhaps, too, in a world where we can but love and where we must lose, it may be no unwisdom if only love and loss seem worth the singing. The swift hour passed. The last song, even as the first, was poignant with the happy sadness of youth: