A weird strain commanding the listener's attention at once-a strain I knew I had never heard before-so curious the opening bars sounded that had I dared I should have said that several well-established rules of harmony were outraged. And yet, in spite of its peculiarity, I knew that he who created that music was a master in the art. It was not Wagner, I was sure, although somewhat of his remarkable power of expression and gift of moving the mind without the aid of melody was present. The first thirty bars or so appeared to me to be of the nature of an overture, heralding the performance to follow. In snatches of mystic music the violin spoke of joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure, love and hate, hope and fear; and as my own thoughts responded to the varied emotions I lay and wondered who could have written the music which affected me so, and thought how fortunate the unknown composer was to have such an exponent of his ideas as Luigi. Yet, as I looked at the latter, it struck me his style of playing to-night was different from usual. Faultless though the execution was, marvellous as were the strains those facile fingers drew forth, the whole manner of the man seemed to be mechanical, utterly at variance with the fire and dash that ever characterized his performances. The skill was there, but for once the soul was wanting. With the exception of his hands and arms, he stood so still that he might have been a statue. He played as one in a trance, and his eyes with a fixed look were ever directed toward the end of the apartment. Swifter and swifter his arm flew backward and forward; more strange, eccentric and weird the music became-stronger in its expression, plainer in its eloquence, more thrilling in its intensity, and ever exercising its powerful spell on the hearer. At last, with a sort of impulse, I turned my eyes from the player and looked in the direction in which he looked. Suddenly the music changed; there was now no lack of melody. A soft, soothing, haunting measure began a sort of dreamy, far-away tuneand as its gentle cadences fell on my ear, hitherto kept in a state of irritating, if not unpleasing, expectation, my thoughts began to wander to old half-forgotten scenes. Distant events came to my mind, recollections of vanished faces, once familiar, flocked around me; all things seemed growing misty and indistinct, and I felt as one sinking into sleep-the sort of sleep that one can almost realize and enjoy. It was not to be, however. A few harsh notes from the fiddle, sounding like a warning or admonition, recalled me to wakefulness, and as my straying thoughts collected themselves that lulling song began again. And yet, if fully awake and conscious, where was I? The scene was entirely changed; and although I knew I was still lying where I had at first placed myself— although I could hear within a few feet of me the unceasing melody of Luigi's violinI was now looking into a strange apartment, even as one looks into the representation of a room on the stage, and I knew I was dreaming no dream. It could be none, for as I gazed I felt a feeling of utter astonishment; and that feeling is always absent from a dream, however marvellous its features may be. Yet, lying there and in as full possession of my faculties as I am at the moment of writing these words, I saw opened as it were before me a strange room, and cne I could in no way connect with any chamber | but his features wore an expression of melwhich I was in the habit of entering. It ancholy pride. I noticed he carried under appeared to be a large, lofty apartment; and his left arm a violin, and something told me if I was looking at a vision, neither the room he was a Frenchman. With great courtesy nor its belongings presented any appearance he led the girl to a seat, and as if in obediof unreality. The latter, indeed, gave the ence to a request of hers commenced playing idea of wealth and comfort. The furniture the instrument. Still the same sweet strain was after the fashion of the early part of fell on my ears, but a stranger thing than any this century. The chairs were covered with I had yet noticed was that as he played the costly old brocade, and a short square piano- sound seemed to come from his violin and forte-then the highest triumph of the ma- Luigi's was dumb. And as he played the ker's art-stood open against one wall. And girl looked up at him with admiring eyes. as, with the sound of the violin ever near He ceased at last, and Luigi's fiddle immeme, I noted these things and waited for what diately resumed the melody without a mowas to come, I knew, although I did not at- ment's break. Then I saw the phantom tempt it, that I was utterly powerless to turn place the violin and bow in the girl's my eyes from the phantom scene before me, hands, instructing her how to hold them; even to ascertain whether it could be that and I knew that during the lesson his Luigi saw the things I saw. voice as well as his eyes made avowal of his passionate love. I saw his fingers linger on hers as he placed them on the strings; I saw the blush deepen upon her cheek, the lashes droop over her downcast eyes, and then I saw him lean over and press his lips to the fair white hand which held the bow, while the music near me, sinking almost to silence and tremulous as if a man's future lay on those vibrating strings, told me he sought his fate at her lips. He threw himself at her feet, and I saw the girl bend over him and, placing her arms around his neck, kiss his forehead, while high and loud rose the song of sweet triumph from those impassioned chords, doubtful of her love no longer. Another change in the wonder-working music—a long, rippling legato passage, sweeping into a tender, passionate, pleading strain, the eloquent notes speaking of joy and fear mingled. As my heart followed and understood the inspiration of the musician I whispered to myself, "This is love." As if in answer to my thoughts, the door of the phantom room opened and two figures entered-a lady and a gentleman. Both wore the dresses of that period to which I have assigned the date of the furniture, and both were young. Like the objects around them, there was nothing in their appearance ghostlike or supernatural. Their limbs looked as firm and round as my own. It was some little time before I could take my eyes from the girl. She was supremely beautiful-tall and fair, with a delicate, refined face-and the robe she wore plainly showed the exquisite proportions of her figure. Her companion was handsome, Again the strain changed: a song of love no longer; a few notes of warning, melting into a strain that foretold and spoke of sorrow. Again I saw the door of the apartment open, and with a hasty step another man entered. He too was young and pow- | first. It was evidently, from the slanting erfully built, with an intensely English face. Yet I could trace in his harder features a resemblance, such as a brother might bear, to the girl before me. As he entered, the lovers sprang to their feet; then, covering her face with her hands, the girl sank upon a chair, while her companion faced the newcomer with an air as haughty as his own, and words of scorning, of contempt, of shaming, of defiance, were hurled from man to man. True, I heard them not: all the phantasmagoria came before me in dumbshow; but the varied tones of the violin told me all that passed between the two men as truly as though their voices smote upon my ear, and as the wild music culminated in a fierce crescendo of thrilling power the two men grappled in their rage, and the girl sprang to her feet and ran wildly to the door. For a moment all grew misty, and the phantom actors of my vision were hidden from my sight. When they reappeared, I saw the young Frenchman quitting the room with blood trickling down his pale cheek; and as, with a look of undying hate on his face, he closed the door behind him, the room and all faded from my sight. But no pause in the music; still those weird notes weaving the mystic spell that chained me. Leaving me no time to reflect on what I had seen, but enforcing my attention to the drama acted before me, the fiery crescendo sank in a dull sullen theme almost colorless when compared with the foregoing numbers; then, as with dissolving-views, where one scene grows through another that fades, I began to realize that I looked into another room-one very different from the roof and small window, an attic, and its contents spoke of poverty. A bedstead with threadbare hangings occupied one corner, and in the centre, at a square table littered with sheets of music, sat the young Frenchman. His brow was contracted and the wound yet fresh on his cheek. He was writing, and through the medium of the music I knew the purport of his epistle as well as if I had looked over his shoulder. It was a challenge -a challenge which, he stated, his late antagonist dare not decline, as the writer was of even more noble family than the man who had insulted him. Having written the letter, he rose and paced the small room, deep in thought. As his steps went backward and forward across the limited space-as his thoughts grew black with hate as he remembered the insult he had suffered, or grew bright with love as he pictured the fair girl who had pledged herself to him-so truthfully did the delicate gradations of the music harmonize with them that I-could feel every emotion stirring his heart, at times almost identifying myself with him, making his joy, his sorrow, mine. After what seemed to be hours he took up the violin that lay on the table near him and commenced playing. As before, I say, whether Luigi's hands produced it or not, the sound came from him; and as he played, the music, at first fierce, stern and harsh, gradually toned down until it became dreamy and lulling, until at last he threw himself on his poor bed, and Luigi's violin resumed the strain-the soft, soothing measure I have before mentioned, telling of placid sleep. Another passages. change: hard, sharp, staccato I was now looking-it might be from a window-on a wide expanse of smooth green turf. As before, the scene was so real, so material, that I might have stepped out on to the sward. There was nothing in the locality which I could identify. A wall and some palings, I remember, were on the left hand; a belt of trees on the right. As I looked I saw figures at some little distance. Two men in their shirt-sleeves were engaged in a deadly duel. They were not so far away but I could plainly distinguish their feadistinguish their features, and I knew they were those of the two men whom I had seen grapple in the room. As their slender flashing blades twined in and out like serpents as they thrust and parried, advanced and retreated -the mysterious music entered fully into the fray, accompanying every stroke, until, as the arm of one of the combatants sank by his side helpless, pierced by his antagonist's blade, it swelled to a strain of exultation. It was the Englishman who was wounded, and as the sword dropped from his grasp his opponent with difficulty checked the impulse urging him to drive his weapon through his unguarded breast; then, seeing his foe was quite unable to renew the combat, he bowed with cold politeness, sheathed his sword and turned away, leaving the wounded man to the care of his second. As the Frenchman vanished from my sight among the trees at the right hand the scene grew blurred and faded only the spell of the music continued ever. The dismal measure and the dismal garret once more. As I look at the poverty-stricken room, the music, eloquent as before, in some hidden manner makes me aware that months have passed since I last looked at it. The young Frenchman is present. Indeed, I begin now to understand that no scene can come beneath my eyes unless he be an actor in it; it is his life, his love, the violin in its own marvellous tongue relates. I wait with interest now; I have no time to wonder at or speculate upon what I have seen-no time. to endeavor to explain the phantom scenes and actions which the song of the Stradivarius has brought before me. I feel no fearcuriosity and excitement only. Luigi's presence I have forgotten, so intent am I upon the drama played before me. The young man, I notice, is handsome as ever, but paler, thinner and careworn. What is the music saying now in that strange speech which I interpret so readily? Poverty and hopelessness, loss of love, and with that loss the wish to rise to fame. He is writing, but the paper before him this time is a score— the score of a work he once thought would hand his name down to future times. I know, as I watch him, that music will never be given to the world. I know it is night, and to kill his bitter thoughts he is sitting down and working without interest at his uncompleted score. As I watch him grieving at his grief, weird and dreamy and unearthly sounds Luigi's violin, bar after bar of the music monotonous and sad. Then of a sudden it wakes to fresh life with a sort of expression of keen surprise, and the young man raises his head from the work that interests him no more, and the door of his poor dwelling opens. Well A few bars of that haunting melody that has caused me to whisper "This is love' merge into a strain of plaintive hopelessness, and the fair girl enters. She is closely veiled and enveloped in a long dark cloak, and as she raises the veil from her face and looks at | playing ever, gives me his thoughts. As 1 read them I shudder, knowing how every fresh departure tends ever and only to the same end: what has he to do with life any longer-he, the last descendant of a noble French family, his sovereign an exile, his lands and possessions confiscated or squandered, and now he lies starving, or soon to be starving, in a London attic? Even the fame that he once hoped to win as a musician is far off; and if ever to be won, is it worth struggling for? The past, to him, is full of agonizing recollections of relatives and friends whose blood has slaked the guillotine's thirst. The present is misery; the future, now that the dream of love he had dared for a while to dream is dispelled, hopeless. What, indeed, has he to do with life any longer? If he knows not how to live, at least he knows how to die. Ever with the same dreary thoughts in his mind, I see him take the bulky score-the result of months, it may be years, of labor-and deliberately tear sheet after sheet to pieces, until the floor is littered with the fragments. And as his action tells me he renounces hope, love and fame I know I am fated to see an awful sight, but am powerless to move my eyes from the scene. For still the melancholy notes sound, and I know that until Luigi's hands are at rest I am fettered by the spell the music weaves. him with silent, wistful eyes the man's heart responds to the impassioned strings and vibrates with love, hopeless though it be. For I know that ere two days are past she will wed another; and the man knows it, and, crushing down his love, curses her in his heart for her faithlessness. He stands for a moment after her entry helpless in his surprise at seeing her, and then, with a grand air of calm politeness, handing her to one of the crazy chairs that furnish his poor room, waits with a cold face to learn the object of her visit. Then the woman, or the music, pleads in pathetic strains for pardon and forgiveness-pleads the pressure put upon her by friends, pleads her utter helplessness in their hands-yet tells him, even with the wedding-ring waiting to encircle her finger, that he alone, the exiled, poverty-stricken Frenchman, owns the love her heart can give. And as the tears fall from her eyes the man waves his arm round the squalid room, and, showing by that gesture his utter poverty and hopelessness, commends, with a bitter sneer, the course she has taken, or been compelled to take, and asks how he could expect the daughter of a noble English family to share such a home and such a lot as his. I see the girl hesitate, falter and tremble, and, as she rises, the man, with a calm air and forced composure, opens the door. Weeping bitterly, she leaves him; and as she closes the rickety door upon her a wail of music more mournful than words can describe lingers in the air and brings the tears to my eyes, while the man kneels down and kisses the very boards on which her feet have rested. With the mirthless smile upon his face, he sits down and begins thinking; and the music, I watch the man, or the phantom, with concentrated interest. The last page of the score falls in tatters to the ground, and, still seated in the chair which he had placed for the girl, he stretches out his hand, seeking for something among the papers on the table. Well I know the object he seeks a small knife with an elaborately chased silver handle, a relic, doubtless, of former riches. To |