"Nothing very wonderful, Miss Wilbur, but I found I had that to give that people were willing to pay for, and I began going about in country places giving recitals, mixing humorous recitations in with the groups of songs, playing my own accompaniments and sometimes having to shovel a path through the snow to the town hall before my audience could come in. I wonder if Caruso ever had to shovel snow away from the Metropolitan Opera House before his friends could get in to hear him! After that I worked my way through two years at college, studying with a good voice teacher. Then came the war. I got through with little more than a scratch and was in one of the first regiments to be sent home after the armistice was signed. The lady who first discovered my voice had influential musical friends in New York. She sent me to them, and, to make a long story a little shorter, last winter I was under an excellent management, obtained a church position, and have sung at a good many recitals. The coming winter looks hopeful." Philip put his hand on his heart and bowed. "Thanking you for your kind attention--here we are at Grammy's." CHAPTER V A FIRELIGHT INTERVIEW Their path had led away from the main road across a field toward a buff-colored house set on a rise of ground like a billow in a green sea. Where the hill descended beyond, there grew a flourishing apple orchard. "Since my grandfather's death, the little farm is overgrown," said Philip. "My grandmother gets a neighbor to cut the hay and milk her cow, and so leaves the cares of the world behind her." A climbing rosebush nearly covered one side of the cottage, and old-fashioned perennials clung about its base. Nothing was yet in bloom; but soon the daisies in the field would lie in white drifts and the wild roses, large and of a deep pink, would soften the ledges of rock cropping out everywhere in the sweet-smelling fields. Philip opened the door and ushered his companion into a small hallway covered with oilcloth, then into a sunny living-room, shining clean, with a floor varnished in yellow and strewn with rag rugs. An old lady, seated in one of the comfortable rocking-chairs, rose to meet them. Her face, the visitor thought, was one of the sweetest she had ever seen. "What a pretty girl she must have been!" she reflected. Around her neck the old lady wore a string of gold beads, and the thick gray hair growing becomingly around her low forehead was carried back and confined in a black net. The simple charm of her welcome to the young girl was the perfection of good manners and her voice was low and pleasant. "I'm glad you've brought my boy back, Miss Wilbur, I've been missing him." "That's right, Grammy. Give me a good character," said Philip hugging her and kissing her cheek. "I must have waffles, though. I'm spoiled."