The Little Schoolmaster Mark

ying bitterly. Then followed all the children of the school, all weeping, and many peasant women, and two or three old men. The Rector stood in a corner of the ch

more than ever. The Chaplain turned round and waved his hand, but the little schoolmaster was too troubled to take a

came calmer; he took his hands from his face, a

come to the Prince, yo

; "thou must not speak till the Prince speaks to thee, an

say 'Highness' and when

ust trust in God; He will show thee

was leaving behind all that was fair and true and beautiful, and going to that which was false and garish and unkind. At last they came to an open drive, or avenue of the forest, where great oaks were growing. Some dista

ey approached the long fa?ade of a house with pointed roofs and green shutter blinds to all the windows. Here the Chaplain left the path, and conducted his companion to a remote side entrance; and, after passing through many passages and small rooms, at last left him to the tender mercies of the court tailor and some domestics, at whose hands the little schoolmaster suffered what appeared to him to be unspeakable indigniti

he paths of a miserable dream. Ah! could he only awake and find himself again in the old

rently of his own age. They appeared to have been just engaged in punching each other's heads, for their hair was disordered, their faces red, and one was in tears. They regarded the Chaplain with

ut the next moment all his attention was absorbed by the figure of the Prince, who was seated on a couch to the right of the room, and almost facing them. To say that this was the most wonderful sight that the little schoolmaster had ever seen would be to speak foolishly, for he had seen no wonderful sights, but it surpassed the wildest imagination of his dreams. The Prince was a very handsome man of about thirty-five, of a slight and delicate figure, and of foreign manners and pose. He was dressed in a suit of what seemed to the boy a wonderful white cloth, of a soft material, embro

, into which the boy's life was turned, took another phase, and he again lost all perception of what he had seen before; for there burst into

f the private theatre which the Prince had formed. He had heard her, a poor untaught girl, in a coffee-house in Ven

one before; he had never heard any singing save that of the peasants at church, and

dden runs and trills, so fantastic and difficult, these chords and harmonies, so quaint and full of colour, were messages from a world of sound, as yet an unknown country to the boy. He stood gazing upon the singer with open mouth. The

as if, in the midst of festival, some hidden grief, known beforetime of all, but forgotten or suppressed, should at once and in a moment well up in the hearts of all, turning the dance-measures into funeral chants, the love-songs into the loveliest of chorales. The Maestro faltered in his accompaniment; the Prince left off marking the time, he swept the monkey from him with a movement of his h

rd," he cried

had been watching through her song, gave a fi

er knees, and, taking her hands from the wet

e in a good hour. This then is the ang

ey as he passed, he left