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Her State of Mind

(Continued from Page 30)

lava stones. Preston watched her go. His hands clenched and unclenched. He longed to take her by the shoulders and shake her until she cried and then to kiss away the tears. He felt tremendously fierce about it. He didn't offer to follow. He felt that she would resent that more

but Auntie is sick at the hotel and I just had to see this. You'll look after me, won't you?"

There was so much confidence in the face she lifted to him that Preston's heart contracted.

"I surely will," he managed to say in a level voice.

"Why, it's raining," said Virgie suddenly. "I have a caracasa somewhere.

than his protest. His miserable eyes fol- Oh, here it is. Let's sit down here. It's

lowed her down the path-that brave, defiant little figure. He doubled his fists and turned in rage in the direction of a man who remarked admiringly, "Pipe the peach, will you?"

He saw her dabbling joyfully with a long stick into the molten mass of lava, shielding her face with her arm to keep off some of the heat.

Presently she started back, waving a small black object triumphantly aloft on the end of her stick, the guide following

close at her heels.

Without warning there came a significant and sickening cracking and the part of the ledge where Virgie had been standing so firmly but a minute before was swallowed up in the lava stream with a hideous sucking noise as of a hungry animal. With a gasping cry Virgie sank down on the path quite helpless with fright, her eyes like a frightened rabbit's fixed with a fascinated stare on the monster behind her.

Preston's feet ceased to be petrified. He bolted down the trail, and before the guide could lift her he had taken that trembling little figure up in his strong, tender arms. She clung to him sobbing.

"Don't cry, Virgie, dear," he comforted. "It's all right, little girl."

There was something strangely comforting and sweet in the tightening hold of those strong arms. But Virgie struggled to get down and stood dabbing her eyes pathetically.

a tremendous caracasa, but so quaint. I feel like the tiny stem of a very enormous mushroom when I carry it.

They sat down, and fell silent.

Darkness seemed to come like the dropping of a black velvet curtain. The lava cliffs of the crater stood in silhouette smoke. A thousand demons played in the against a background of apricot colored fountains of spouting lava. A ukelele player near them began the pathetically the words softly. Virgie unconsciously sweet music of "Like No A Like," singing leaned nearer Preston.

"Oh," she whispered. "It's so wonderful it makes me ache queerly in my throat."

Preston seized her hands in a grasp that hurt.

chokingly, "I love you. I feel as if I had "Oh, Virgie, dear little Virgie," he said always loved you. Of course you don't know anything about me, but won't you take me on trust?”

Virgie's reply was to lift her luminous eyes and her tremulous smiling lips to his. "Nothing on earth can describe my state of mind at this moment," she said shakily.

An Arctic Superman

(Continued from Page 23)

coral. To make a home happy had he come, this fragment of dawn, this little harbinger of sunshine, with his thin pipings-who was to bear the given name

All but a few of the tourists had al- of Jason, and to receive from his godready gone so there were not many curious eyes on the little scene.

"You will want to go back to the hotel?" Preston asked solicitously. "No," said Virgie. "I told the driver not to come back until after dark. I suppose it isn't at all proper to be here alone,

father a store-house of furs! And the door opened, and into the night, before the beryl and ruby streamers of Aurora, came Jason Finley, whose voice trembled as he addressed a score of opaque forms in the inkiness:

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The Stolen Melody

(Continued from Page 52)

and Koruloff promised to produce the symphony in the autumn. He was so impressed that he postponed his vacation several days to help Mascal, and within two weeks the work was scored. Koruloff took the manuscript with him that

summer.

The symphony was not presented until late in the winter, and what happened at its presentation is common knowledge. The number of times Mascal was called out to acknowledge the demonstration can be equaled only in the annals of grand opera, when a Patti or a Galli-Curci is forced to show herself twenty times in front of the curtain after repeating some unusually lovely aria.

How the critics hailed the work as the supreme triumph of orchestral music, how the composer leaped at one bound to be the recognized leader of the musical world, how this super-Beethoven brought American music into its own-all these things are well known. But what the world has never known is why Mascal chose a tawdry ragtime melody as the theme of his sympathy. Some critics have seen in it an attempt to prove that no melody is tawdry, and they use specious reasoning to show that Mascal took the most trivial tune he could find and developed it into one of the majestic themes of music. Others argue, with equal heat, that Mascal built on a popular theme to prove that the music of the people is really the only great music after all. But what none of them has understood—and that is why this account is written-is that the melody was never tawdry. It was a noble melody from the first, and Mascal simply restored it to its primal estate.

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concluded she was the owner-she had told me her destination was Spokane. Within two weeks I go to Spokane on business. Mr. Westerly Silverthorn-your uncle is a personal friend of my father. I have told him the story of the exchange. He is to give me a letter of introduction to your family in general-to you, in particular, and I shall take pleasure in calling on you all, incidentally to get my property out of cold storage; especially to meet you. Give my regards to your friend and tell her for me:

"Fate that often plays queer pranks, sometimes masquerades as Cupid.' Cordially yours,

"LARRY H. WESTON,
"Bachelor."

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The fruit of Wallace Irwin's summer "vacation" in California is shown in his serial, "The Seed of the Sun," running in the Post. When he told such of his intimates as expressed curiosity about his new book it was on a Japanese subject, the majority of them immediately jumped to the conclusion that the motif was

something on the lines of "Madame Butterfly," "The Darling of the Gods," or (perhaps) "Patria." But nothing of that poetical or sensational sort of motif for Wallace Irwin. The first installments of the serial show him as a keen and common-sensical observer of one of the big problems California is facing now. The scenes of the story are laid partly in New York, and partly in Bly, a small farm center in our State, where Japanese rent or work most of the farms. To say more might spoil the reader's interest in this story which is the "biggest" thing Wallace Irwin has done for a long time. Though his "Trimmed With Red" in its breezy slaps at parlor bolshevism may be considered strong stuff-if it cured three of these amateur reds it was a benefaction to our country.

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From A Clear Sky (Continued from Page 41)

Her answer was slow in coming; and then it was not satisfactory.

"Perhaps one of the girls would rather, as they've known you longer."

"All the more reason," I ventured, "so that we can all brag of the same length of acquaintance. I feel as if I'd spoiled your evening by butting in."

"I should say not!" Miss Wade replied. "And if Carmen won't ride in with you, I will. The air is getting cool and we must get started."

"Miss Rois," I said, in a voice I hardly recognized myself, "won't you please ride in with me? If you will," I coaxed, "I promise to get you your lost letter."

She clapped her pretty pink palms together.

"Will you promise?"

"I have promised."

"Thanks just the same! But really, I must get in to Peggy. I think, too, she'll feel hurt if the three of us don't go in together."

There was nothing left for me to say; so I helped them into their car, after packing their cooking outfit.

I followed, after they were well started. The night, a little chilly but graced by a perfect moon high above the ghostly outlines of the eastern mountains, made me long for what? The one I had waited for all my life. Her beautiful image kept coming between me and the night; and then, clearly-for sounds on a still night travel far I heard Carmen Rois say:

"Because I didn't want to! Why didn't you, then? He's your friend, not mine." Miss Wade's voice answered:

"Because he wanted YOU!"

I thought of a million-and-one things I wished I'd said—and hadn't. There was one thing that I could do that I should have done. I would call on the little Widow Mason and her daughter, Peggy, and put matters right for the Doctor. I turned my car loose, and waving goodbye, was off.

There was a light in the living room, and also in the room of the sick girl. I took the steps, but not three at a time.

It would be something to get this thing off my conscience; and if I ever saw Carmen Rois again—

Yes! And if I saw her again, what then? She was more than indifferent to me; she she was callous! What could I do to interest her in me? What-could-I-do!

[To Be Continued]

Beautiful Hands

(Continued from Page 61)

"Not today," objected Rollins mildly. "You see I make it a point never to adopt a baby on Tuesday. Now, if it were Monday or Sunday, I might consider it but on a Tuesday; Oh, dear no!"

His visitor looked unconvinced. "That baby is coming right into this house, for you are going to step out on the porch and bring in the basket before the rain soaks through."

Rollins pondered. Something told him that Martha's quicksand temper would ossify into hard mud, should she breeze home to discover that she had become a step-parent without her knowledge and consent. Rollins was not much impressed with the idea as presented—and yet—

The Blonde was leaning over his chair now; gently her hands clasped themselves around his neck. He moved as if to push her aside but she only tightened her grip. Ardently she drew him closer -closer in a mad caress, despite Rollins' feeble efforts to free himself. And then like a flash he understood. Great Heavens! She was trying to strangle him!

"Scat!" The words burst from Martha's lips like a hiss of steam. Rollins opened confused, sleepy eyes as a furry gray ball shot itself off his shoulder and across the room followed by his wife's slipper.

"Shiftless," she stormed. "That cat and you both are good-for-nothing dreamers, but thank my stars, the cat can sleep without snoring."

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