"Ah, you have a poet's soul, Miss Jewel. Will you tell me something of your life? You were not born here?" They were walking up and down the broad verandah and Renestine was telling him of the little mother so far away, parted from, perhaps never to be seen again. She was saying, "At last when the time came to say good-bye, I clung to my mother's form and in that moment could see my soul, bared, bruised, wounded and somehow the little girl passed with that parting and although I was but a few months younger than I am to-night, I am here just one year, I feel much changed and older." Her lids closed and Jaffray did not interrupt. "Mr. Starr, do you know of any experience more cruel than this parting of parents in Europe with their children to come to America? I think of it now so often. I think there cannot be in all life . . . ." Jaffray saw the tears in those wonderful eyes. "No, Miss Jewel, no. I know of nothing more humanly cruel! I, too, parted from my beloved mother and twin sister when a mere lad to cross the ocean to seek my fortune in America. A lad barely fifteen years of age, I had no idea of what I was going out to meet in the world when I took my small belongings and journeyed toward these shores. There were no friends, no relatives where I was going; all those were being left behind; but the spirit of adventure possessed me and I wanted more freedom to work out my destiny in and the parting had to be for me and I cannot tell you how I have suffered from homesickness for the beloved Mother and good sister, for the little home in the Rhine village where the terraces of grapes lay just back of our house; that never is forgotten, no matter how long one lives. We have a common bond of sympathy, may I hope it means a tie of friendship?" She gave him her hand and shortly afterwards he led her back into the ballroom; but the music could not tempt them to dance again and, after seeing Renestine with friends, he said good-night and left. It was near daylight when Jaffray smoked his last cigar and finally put out the light in his little room in the hotel and went to bed. Jaffray paid frequent visits to Houston from McKinney, after he met Miss Jewel. Although Renestine was busy with her school work, her sister permitted her, like all the young girls, to accept the attentions of young men who wished to call or who invited her to social affairs.