That promised to bring us to a dead-lock, so we went back to our house-plans again, and Dinky-Dunk pointed out that the new living-room would be bigger than all our present shack and the annex put together. And that caused me to stare about our poor little cat-eyed cubby-hole of a wickyup and for the first time realize that our first home was to be wiped off the map. And nothing would ever be the same again, and even the prairie over which I had stared in my joy and my sorrow would always be different! A lump came in my throat. And when Olga came in and I handed Dinky-Dink to her she could see that my lashes were wet. But she couldn't understand. So I slipped over to the piano and began to play. Very quietly I sang through Herman Lohr's Irish song that begins: In the dead av the night, acushla, When the new big house is still ... But before I got to the last two verses I'm afraid my voice was rather shaky. In the dead av the year, acushla, When me wide new fields are brown, I think av a wee ould house, At the edge av an ould gray town! I think av the rush-lit faces, Where the room and loaf was small: _But the new years seem the lean years, And the ould years, best av all!_ Dinky-Dunk came and stood close beside me. "Has my Gee-Gee a big sadness in her little prairie heart?" he asked as he slipped his arms about me. But I was sniffling and couldn't answer him. And the cling of his blessed big arms about me only seemed to make everything worse. So I was bawling openly when he held up my face and helped himself to what must have been a terribly briny kiss. But I slipped away into my bedroom, for I'm not one of those apple-blossom women who can weep and still look pretty. And for two blessed hours I've been sitting here, Matilda Anne, wondering if our new life will be as happy as our old life was.... Those old days are over and gone, and the page must be turned. And on that last page I was about to write "_Tamam shud_." But kinglike and imperative through the quietness of Casa Grande I hear the call of my beloved little _tenor robusto_--and if it is the voice of hunger it is also the voice of hope! THE END ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Popular Copyright Novels _AT MODERATE PRICES_ Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction