Page:Ballinger Price--The Happy Venture.djvu/221

Rh Maestro, after a peep within, expressed himself loth to disturb such a happy time, but Ken haled him in without more ado.

"Nonsense, sir," he said. "Why—why you're part of us. Mother wouldn't have seen half our life here till she'd met you."

So the Maestro seated himself in the circle of firelight, and Martin retired behind a veil of tobacco-smoke—with permission—in the corner.

"We came," said the Maestro, after a time of other talk, "because we're going away so soon, and—"

"Going away!" Three blank voices interrupted him. Kirk left even his mother's arm, to find his way to the Maestro's.

"But I do go away," said the old gentleman, lifting a hand to still all this protest, "every autumn—to town. And I came partly to ask—to beg you—that when cold weather seems to grip Applegate Farm too bitterly, you will come, all of you, to pay an old man a long visit. May I ask it of you, too, Mrs. Sturgis? My house is so big—Martin and I will find ourselves lost in one corner of it. And—" he frowned tremendously and shook Kirk's arm, "I absolutely forbid Kirk to stop his music. How