"More, more," they insisted, clapping their hands.
"Just one more song," pleaded Edith.
"Do you sing, 'Drink to me only with thine eyes'?" asked Kenneth. For answer, she struck the chords, and sang; then she laid down the guitar.
"Please sing one of your American ballads. Sing 'Home, Sweet Home,'" he suggested.
She had been homesick all day, so there was a home-sigh in her voice as she sang. Kenneth moved his chair into the shadow, and watched her.
At last he rose to go; and with promises of an early return, he withdrew.
Not to the saloon did he go that night, as had been his custom since coming to the mining camp. He walked on and on, out into the vast aloneness of the mountains. Once in a while he stopped, and looked down towards Clayton Ranch. At intervals he whistled softly.—The strain was "Home, Sweet Home."
John Clayton and his wife sat long before the fire after Esther and Edith had retired. Mary Clayton was a gentle being, with a fair, sweet English face. And she adored her husband. They had been talking earnestly.
"Any way, Mary," John Clayton was saying, "I believe Miss Bright could make an unusually fine man of Kenneth. I believe she could make him a better man, too."
"That might be, John," she responded, "but you wouldn't want so rare a soul as she is to marry him to reform him, would you? She's like a snow-drop."