A Nest of Linnets

and he continued twanging it with his thumb as he raised it to the proper note in the scale. She watched him, with his head slightly turned to one side, and she

old man, i

om I am going to

over fifty

I am going to m

itors," said he. "I did not pay much attention to the papers, but now I recollec

or him to be old than it is for me to be young. I suppose some n

ian's shrug-he had learned something be

as a shrug in his voice. "After all,

al tone. "What does it matter? I must marry some one, and is it not bett

few moments, an

prefer marrying a woman who hated me rather than one who looked on

aria from having to be a singer. I shall

dropped upo

annot be possible that it is your w

I have for agreeing to ma

intelligence that could not be surpassed, an imagination that actually stands in need of being restrained; you, who have it in your power to sway the souls of men and women as the

ful as Mrs. Crewe! And Mrs. Crewe said how lucky it was that they had an opportunity of judging upon this point for so small a sum as half a guinea. And there was I, compelled to stand up before them and sing, 'I know that my Redeemer liveth,' while they smiled, criticising me through their glasses, just as if I were a horse being put through its paces! Oh, my brother, I felt all the time that I was degrading my gift, that I was selling those precious words of comfort and joy and their wonderful interpretation into music that goes straight to the soul of men and women-selling them for money which I put into my own pocket! There they sat smiling before me, and Mrs. Crewe said she did not like the way my hair was dressed. I heard her whisper it just as I had sung the first phrase of 'For now is Christ risen from the dead,' just as the joy-th

before she had finished spea

ensitive. What can I say to comfort you? How have you come to allow yourself to be carried away by the foolishness of some members of your aud

o me. It must have been an agony to him. But he was a genius; it may be different with a genius. A genius may be able so to absorb himself in his music tha

aid soothingly, as one add

f appearing before an audience? Oh, surely there is something to live for besides singing to divert the people he

om music?" said he. "If you do, you are not my sister. There is

ou never love

ustrate-I do not talk so wildly; but I do say that it lends itself admirably to illustration at the hands of a competent musician; so that

him away

stand," she said. "It is left to me to work out my ow

lend itself to interpretation through the medium of

t it vacated, and listlessly, hopelessly, wa

g of the woman in your nature. Handel was a genius. Mr. Garrick is a genius, too; each of them is the greatest in his own art that the world has ever known. And yet you do not hear that either of them thought as you do; you do not hear that Handel ever said that he was degrading himself because he

; but I am

ugnani would retire from the stage. He did not do so. When he had played his first movement, he looked up to the royal box, and then he smiled down at us. I saw the look that was upon his face, a look of determination-the look which is on the face of a master of fence when he is about to engage a tyro. In a second he had drawn his bow across the strings, and the jest that the prince was in the act of uttering remained frozen on his lips. We saw that-we saw the Maestro smile as he went on playing; he had the prince in his grasp as surely as if he had had his hand on the fellow's throat; he kept him enthralled for a quarter of an hour, and then, without a pause, he went on to the Andante. Before he had reached the second bar the prince was in tears. We saw that-yes, for a few bars, but after that

a world of their own, and it is a world the air of which I have never breathed. It is the breath of their nostrils to face a great audience: I

d to marry this old man in order to be

asked. "I think 'tis not so. I s

g of becoming a good wife-a good wife-in a cottage, counting the eggs, milking the cows!"

r nothing

who have said it, though I have heard the best in Italy and I am capable of judging; no, 'tis your rivals who have said it-and Mr. Garrick. Would he have offered such sums to get you to sing at Drury Lane if he had not known t

to hear me, should I not have been endowed also with that talent which your maestro was able to exercise? Should I feel that shrinking from the platfo

de?-that you remain unmoved, no matter

I can honestly tell you, my brother, that when I get more applause than usual, I feel no pride, I only feel oppr

in his eyes for a long time.

io; but for one to be endowed with such a gift as yours, and yet to feel-as you say you do-- Oh, it is impossible for me to fathom such a mystery! 'Twere unjust to blame you, but-- Oh, well, a girl is a queer thing. My Maestro holds that every woman comes

Long," she said af

Before she had got to the top of the stairs she heard him pl