The Ketchikan miner., 1914-01-30
HART'S
 GENIUS
By COLIN S. COLLINS.

.t+T*T%|.fS Fl. ]. !. StfT&'%f.s'*
 Hart stirred uneasily as the tones foated out, now round and full, now the merest whisper of divine melody. No mere amateur it was who tenderly bowed the violin. Hart had heard the best of those who had come to America on tour, and he knew that this was the playing of master.
 1 Even as child Morris Hart had been strangely moved by music, and now his soul thrilled as the al- most human notes pierced the air. For time he could not locate the player, but at last he caught a glimpse of a girl as lovely as the music she made.
 She stood at the window of a squalid tenement that faced the building in which Hart had his of- fee and, all unconscious of the notice she attracted, played on and on. The same airs she played over and over again, but the trial bal ance waited while Hart drank in the melody At last, with sigh, she laid down the instrument and, carefully putting it away, busied herself with the preparation of her simple meal.
 Hart turned again to the trial balance which the bookkeeper had laid upon his desk, but he could not banish from his thoughts the fair musician and the picture she made framed in the opening in the rough brick of the rear wall.
 She was fair with the fairness of 1 the north. but her eyes were the lustrous black of the Latins, and in her face was an odd mixture of the cold repression of the north born with the passion of the sunnier south. Even in the poor dress she wore she did not lose her queenly stateliness of bearing, and the col larless, shabby waist betrayed the round fullness of the neck and the dazzling whiteness of her shoulders.
 For a man who had hitherto accounted women things of little importance the girl of the violin occupied much of Hart's attention that afternoon, and in the evening she absorbed his thoughts to the ex- clusion of all else.
 Hart was early at his office in the morning. He had passed an al- most sIeepIcss night and had come to the office in the hope of find ing forgetfulness of the girl in the absorption of work. But scarcely had he begun when from across the wards came the sound of the violin. Today she stood slightly more in the shadow, and he could barely discern her face, though his mem ory needed DO refreshing. and he could see her as plainly as he had the day before, when she had stood just in front of the window. Over and over again she played the same airs. The head clerk came in fol the mail, and Hart waved him away. It was not until the violin was put away and the girl sat at the window with some sewing that Hart could give his attention to his affairs. Late in the afternoon the violin was taken up again, and once more Hart stopped work that he might drink in to the full the sweet strains that seemed to gain an add ed beauty from their environment.
 For a week or so Hart enjoyed the daily concert; then there came d day when the windows were clos ed and the violin did not sound. In some way Hart worried through the day, but when evening fell. instead of going direct to his club, as was his custom, he hunted up the little house on the back street. It was with difficulty that he located the apartment, but at last he found the right one and made eager inquiry of the slatternly woman who an- nounccd herself as the ianitress.
 They were gone, she told him. 1 the little old professor and his daughter. Slie did not know where they had gone. They were annoy ing the other tenants with their everlasting playing and had been asked 10 move on that account.
 Hart turned away heartsick and discouraged. Now that the girl was ] gone he felt that he had let pass out of his life the one woman who would have made him happy. All the evening he moped at the club, and in the days to come the em- ployces at the office asked each other anxiously if the depression iu stocks had impaired the capital of