feel my appetite coming back."

If the truant appetite "came back," however, it could not have
stayed; for the man ate but little. He frowned, too, as he saw
how little the boy ate. He sat silent while his son cleared the
food and dishes away, and he was still silent when, with the boy,
he passed out of the house and walked to the little bench facing
the west.

Unless it stormed very hard, David never went to bed without this
last look at his "Silver Lake," as he called the little sheet of
water far down in the valley.

"Daddy, it's gold to-night--all gold with the sun!" he cried
rapturously, as his eyes fell upon his treasure. "Oh, daddy!"

It was a long-drawn cry of ecstasy, and hearing it, the man
winced, as with sudden pain.

'Daddy, I'm going to play it--I've got to play it!" cried the
boy, bounding toward the cabin. In a moment he had returned,
violin at his chin.

The man watched and listened; and as he watched and listened, his
face became a battle-ground whereon pride and fear, hope and
despair, joy and sorrow, fought for the mastery.

It was no new thing for David to "play" the sunset. Always, when
he was moved, David turned to his violin. Always in its quivering
strings he found the means to say that which his tongue could not