The hen-house door is open. The chickens are all on their roost,
with their heads cuddled under their wings."

"Did you feed them?"

The boy clapped his hand over his mouth with a comical gesture of
penitence, and dashed into the shed for a panful of corn, which he
scattered over the ground, enticing the sleepy fowls by insinuating
calls of "Chick, chick, chick, chick! COME, biddy, biddy, biddy,
biddy! COME, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick!"

The man in the doorway smiled as over the misdemeanour of somebody
very dear and lovable, and rising from his chair felt his way to a
corner shelf, took down a box, and drew from it a violin swathed in a
silk bag. He removed the covering with reverential hands. The
tenderness of his face was like that of a young mother dressing or
undressing her child. As he fingered the instrument his hands seemed
to have become all eyes. They wandered caressingly over the polished
surface as if enamoured of the perfect thing that they had created,
lingering here and there with rapturous tenderness on some special
beauty--the graceful arch of the neck, the melting curves of the
cheeks, the delicious swell of the breasts.

When he had satisfied himself for the moment, he took the bow, and
lifting the violin under his chin, inclined his head fondly toward it
and began to play.

The tone at first seemed muffled, but had a curious bite, that began
in distant echoes, but after a few minutes' playing grew firmer and
clearer, ringing out at last with velvety richness and strength until