The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-12-15
CHAPTER XVIII, The lsartlo Engages.

father and lighthouseman, She stood a while in the doorway of the little parlor, stunned at first, then orienting her ideas out of a kind of vague Ina bility to think what had come to her, but never quite taking her eyes off the beautiful little 'cottage" piano which was now her own.
 Slowly she understood. Dick could not have bought 1t, She knew the ex- tent of Dicks resources. Mr. Morris well, he dare not It must be Billy. It was Billy her foolish old Billy, She saw the guilty complaisant, happy look on his face The very width of his Irish grin gave him away.
 "Oh Billy" she said. And suddenly, with hands still at her side and stand ing there in the doorway, she began to cry. The tears ran down her checks as Billy Bryan rose at once to go to her. Was anything amiss? Was what he had thought of for years on his lonely lighthouse. dreamed of goggle- eyed under the weighty glare of the electrics, pondered upon by the hour in his bunk when the waves made the Skerry tower rock like tall tree in the wind--was it all to go wrong? If so he would reckon with that young man in the music shop who elped him so cheerfully to choose it.
 What is it, thin, darlin?" he stam- mered, his ruddysface little pale. "Is anything wrong with that tn ere music box? If so, I can get 1t changed. There were other sorts; one that you just put In the sheets with the music on them all ready pricked out and turn handle But my young spalpeeff. with his ears tackled on to his collar top, laughed and said that he guessed you wouldn't want that kind. It came cheaper, too, for all the conveniences But if he has worked off a dead bird on Billy Bryan, Billy will pack his old case straight back to the shop-yes, that young man had better be on the high road for Australy when Billy gets there himselfp
 "Oh, now cried Vida; ''it is lovely; 1t is too-too good! But-but-you are too thoughtful for me-too kind. I never do anything"
 Not bit, not bit, honey; sit ye down on the cork-screw seat with the button on the top and just make the machinery warble once in a way. That'n pay for allr'
 By this time Vida had come forward, holding her breath, lest with the small est noise on her part the whole would vanish away like a dream. T know it isn't one" she said softly, as if to herself, but it is just like a dream. And it's a Broadwood! A real Broad woodv'
 "Yuss,'' said the now relieved Billy, mo narrow wood for me- I got 1t as broad as I could afford in the stand up kind The Tying down sort would have struck out at the front door, and part way down to Kirktown! Besides, there would have been no place for vis- itors, except perhaps underneath. Well, now, just think O old Dick there and that young giant out of a travelling menagerie playing house under Billy's piano! That would make a cat laugh, let alone a poor old ligh thouseman that never sees but the scarts and the sea- fowl to laugh at! This is good time, Billy, my bhoy. Ye never saw a better"
 And Vida, happily turning over the music sat down and softly from be- meath her fingers came the nrst notes of Greig's Midsummer Night on the Nord Fjord." The men sat entranced. She played with the instinct of melody, her head thrown back and her body swaying slightly; so we'll. indeed, that Billy, still suspicious, bent and looked beneath.
 "Faix, I was thinkin' that little gin tleman in tn pretty ringlets had passed off on me the machinery pianno after all"
 But "The Wearing of the Green" and ''Kitty of Coleraine" brought the tears running in warm spate down his Irish checks Billy was speedily reassured that he had not been deceived. Also. that so far as the "Broadwood" was concerned, his money was well spent. He went to bed that night feeling that however good it might be to dream of youth and beauty to the trip and purr of well-oiled machinery sup in the Skerrylight Dick, his mate. had the best of it, with Vida always before his eyes, bringing music out of the new
 I. Glebe End gate of the great Gorm house properties.
 After Vida had been induced to leave the keys and shut down the cover with the delicious sound of exquisitely fitting rosewood, which went to her heart, she said goodnight. And Billy explained to Dick that he might count himself very lucky. Moreover, he was a selfsh unthankful old man, and it was full time that he, Billy Bryan, left the lighthousing and-married Vida himself.
 Whereupon old Dick Finnan pointed out that having endowed Vida with his name and adopted her as daughter. such connection was clearly impos- sible according to the tables which he would find at the beginning of the Bible, as we'll as forbidden by the laws of his country.
 Besides" Dick added pointed1y, do ye really think now, Billy, that the young lass would take up with a scrawny old salt herring like you?"
 Billy scratched his head for a min ute, first on one side and then on the other, and looked sorrowful. But he did not give way.
 "There may be something in what you say as to the law,'s he retorted, ''but as to your suggestion that she wouldn't have me because of my per- sonal appearance I scorn it! Never a woman yit that I asked to marry me that ever refused me-"
 "Then you took good care not to ask any at all," said old Dick, pick ing up his candle and shuffling off up stairs Come to bed, Billy; young maids like Vida are not for you and me. except just to look after bit till the proper man comes along. Then it's Goodbye, Dick! Goodbye. Billy" And she's gone from us forever. That's the sort of fathers we are!"
 CHAPTER XIX.
 The Mysterious Fire.
 The underground engineer went out of the Glebe End gate very thought fullv that night. He had accustomed himself to believe that nothing he un- dertook could possibly fail. But he
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