Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/333

 Miss Alton laughed.

"I thought you would ask me to," she said. "I never yet sang it to an audience that I did not have a recall, and I always repeat the song because I know that is what they want."

And then she sang it again, and it sounded even more beautiful than before. Uncle Bobby looked forth across the sea, to where a golden planet shone out, and a sudden calm fell upon him, as though he had known all along how beautiful his music was, and as though it really made no very great difference that others had found it out, since it was good music either way.

Again the applause was sounding in his ears, and now Uncle Bobby's mind had wandered from the music to the star, that was burning clearer every moment. Suddenly he heard his name.

"Yes," Miss Alton had been saying, "the publisher is dead, and I have never been able to find out anything about Robert Kingsbury Pratt. I am afraid he is dead too."

Here other voices took up the name. "Robert Kingsbury Pratt! Why, Uncle Bobby's middle name begins with a K!"—and cries of "Uncle Bobby! Uncle Bobby! Where's Uncle Bobby!" rose on every hand.

Then Uncle Bobby got up from his chair, and stole noiselessly across the piazza, and out, under the pine-trees to the white beach, where he paced up and down in the starlight. There was no moon, and there was little danger of his being