Felicia looked about the little shadow-flecked room.
"I know what you're thinking," said the Maestro, smoothing Kirk's dark hair. "You're hating the thought of leaving Applegate Farm. But perhaps the winter wind will sing you a different tune. Do you not think so, Mrs. Sturgis?"
Mrs. Sturgis nodded. "Their experience doesn't yet embrace all the phases of this," she said.
"Yes," said the Maestro, "some day before the snows come, you will come to me. And we'll fill that big house with music, and songs, and laughing--yes, and work, too. Ah, please!" said the Maestro, quite pathetically.
"We _will_ come, dear Maestro," she said, "when this little fire will not keep us warm any longer."
From behind them came murmurous talk of ships--Ken and Martin discussing the _Celestine_ and her kind, and the magic ports below the Line. Kirk whispered suddenly to the Maestro, who protested.
"Oh, please!" begged Kirk, his plea becoming audible. "_Really_ it's a nice thing. I know Ken makes fun of it, but I _have_ learned a lot from it, haven't I? Please, Maestro!"
"Very well, naughty one," said the musician; "if your mother will forgive us."
He bowed to her, and then moved with Kirk into the unlit part of the room where the little organ stood. With a smile of tender amusement, he sat down at the odd little thing and ran his fingers up and down the short, yellowed keyboard. Then, with Kirk lost in a dream of rapt worship and listening ecstasy beside him, he began to play. And his touch made of the little worn melodeon a singing instrument, glorified beyond its own powers by the music he played.
The dimly firelit room swam with the exquisite echo of the melody. Ken and Martin sat quiet in their corner. Felicia gazed at the dear people in the home she had made: at Ken, who had made it with her--dear old Ken, the defender of his kindred; at Kirk, for whom they had kept the joy of living alight; at the Maestro, the beautiful spirit of the place; at her mother, given back to them at last. Mrs. Sturgis looked wonderingly at her children in the firelight, but most of all at Kirk, whose face was lighted, as he leaned beside the Maestro, with a radiance she had never before seen there.
And without, the silver shape of a waning moon climbed between the black, sighing boughs of the laden orchard, and stood above the broad, gray roof of Applegate Farm.