would never stop, and soon it grew wilder and faster, and at the last even mad and furious. It frightened Nella. She seemed to see the sunset turn all of a fierce dark red, and the angel wings grow black, and fan to and fro violently, and the little airy bark sink in a great stormy sea. She ran back to bed, and covered her head with the clothes, and held her hands to her ears, but she could not help hearing the music which terrified her so; and she was trembling as if in great trouble, when at last the sound broke off, and the player, with a laugh, threw his fiddle clattering down upon the table.

Although Bill had on the next morning, as usual, gone down to the shore before Nella left her bed, he came in again to fetch something while she was eating her bread and milk.

'Did you hear the music last night, little 'un?' he asked.

She understood him when he had repeated the question, and answered, 'Yes.'

'What did you think of it?'

'Oh, how beautiful!' cried Nella; for although the music had frightened her at the last, she still loved it.

'You shall hear it again,' said Bill, nodding, as he went out of the cottage.

Nella had not long to wait, for on that very night, while she was sitting in her own room eating her supper, which she had carried up there because the place was prettier than the kitchen, she heard the trampling of men's boots without, and then Bill came into the cottage, and someone with him; and after a time, Bill called up the stairs, 'Little 'un-Nella-I say!'

She came to the trap-door and down one or two steps, but then seeing a stranger there, a great shyness came over her, and she dared not go further, nor yet dared go back, so sat trembling on that round of the ladder which she had reached.

'Music, music,' said Bill, nodding his head and pointing with his thumb towards his companion, who then took up a fiddle which was leaning against his chair and held it out to Nella, tapping it with the bow in a manner which he meant for fun. He smiled at her too; but

all this notice taken of her made her only the more shy, so that it was now as hard for her to move as if strong hands had been holding her in her place. She was always afraid of Bill Waters and his friends, none of whom she liked; and although she now knew the stranger to be the man who had played the beautiful music, she could not as yet like him the better for that; he looked so unlike the music, as though it could not really come from him, but he was only in some way the instrument on which a greater hand was playing. So indeed, in a measure, he was; as all true artists are.

Seeing that the little girl would come no farther, Bill told the other man to play. He was a short thick-set fellow, with shaggy brown hair on his face and head, and light blue eyes, which looked vague and

watery, except when he was thinking of music. He was very rough and dirty in his dress. But he took up the violin, and straightway he was changed. He laid his cheek upon the wooden thing as if he loved it, while he drew the strings to the proper tension, and then, as he played, his eyes grew kind and clear, and he smiled happily, and seemed to see far away. As on the previous night, Nella was drawn to the music. Hardly knowing how, she lost all her shyness because she lost all thought of herself, and came slowly down, not noticing Bill's encouraging look, and up to the knees of the player. There was a little stool beside him, and there she sat down, watching his face, in which she saw, not the plain round features, but something beautiful, like a faint reflection of light from the birth-place of the music. The player let the bow drop for

a moment.

'Ah, do not stop!' breathed Nella, very earnestly and low in Italian ; and then, remembering where she was, put the words into English.

'My little lady like de music,' said the man; for he too was a foreigner, a German, who had come to Brentholm, as he said, to look for work; but if he had found work, I fear he would not have kept to it. He was very very lazy; one of those people who are always wandering to and fro, and of whom one chiefly wonders that they do not starve. This poor German went from town to town, stopping at each, and playing his sweet tunes, and getting food in return for them, and then, when no one cared for more of his music, and all the people were tired of him, he would tuck his fiddle under his arm and saunter on to the next pretty place he came So now he had come to Holm, and Bill Waters had taken a fancy to him.

to.

He went on playing when Nella asked, and soon he fell into a sweet Italian melody which she knew well; her mother had sung it so often. She kept her eyes fixed on the violin, as if she were drinking in the music with them as well as with her ears, until the tears blinded her, and then she let her head drop on her hands, and cried so quietly that Bill did not at first see that she was crying. When at last he did see, he called out, " What's up with the little lass!' so loudly that he made her start. She seemed to awaken as if from a dream.

'It is for the music,' she said presently, when she could remember some English words.

Bill pulled her to him, and wiped her eyes with the corner of the Chinese neckerchief, no longer so gay as when he had first put it on in honour of Miss Charteris.

'No cry, no cry,' said the little German anxiously. 'I will to you my fiddle give-see.' He laid the fiddle in her arms as though that were comfort enough for any sorrow. It had been so to him in all his sorrows, which had mostly arisen from the want of beer, and of the sausages of his fatherland. He had often played himself to sleep, poor fellow! when he had had to lie down without a supper, and with no better pillow awaiting him than a heap of straw. So now he gave it to

Nella as consolation for the trouble in her which he did not at all understand. Strangely enough, it was a consolation to her. She began to smile at him shyly as she murmured her 'Thank you,' which she never forgot; and then she slipped away from Bill into the darkest corner, and sat on the bottom step of her ladder holding the fiddle. She felt at once as if she loved it. It brought old times back to her mind very clearly, when she had seen the men playing on the violin in the theatre, and one or two days when a great violinist had come to her mother's rooms to practise with her an accompaniment to a song. On one of those days, seeing how eagerly the child watched his instrument, he had shown her how to hold the bow, and to press the strings with her fingers, just in play, and only for a few minutes; but she had not forgotten the lesson. Bill and his comrade began to smoke, and pulled out a greasy pack of cards to play with; and meanwhile, Nella laid the fiddle on her shoulder, and placed her hands as the Italian musician had taught her to do. There was a wonderful feeling in her; a feeling of wanting something very very much; so much that the want of it was a great pain, and yet in some strange way a great happiness too, and what the thing was which she wanted, she could not tell. She had felt the same before at times, when watching the sunset from the tower; or, longer back, but then more faintly, when her mother's singing had brought tears to her eyes, she did not know why. But she had never felt it so strongly and keenly as now. She raised the bow and drew from the violin a long soft tone like a gentle breath. The German raised his head quickly; but Bill said, 'Be quiet; let her be!' so no one disturbed Nella. She tried again, and again a beautiful tone came; it seemed to her that her soul was hot and thirsty, and that with that sound a drop of coolness fell on it. But the third note was harsh and out of tune. It shot through her like a sharp prick. She stroked the wood of the fiddle, feeling somehow as though she must have hurt it to make it speak so strangely. She carried it up to the German, hardly knowing what she was going to do, and said to him, 'Oh, teach me!'

The little round dirty face looked kindly at her, but he only said 'Wait a bit,' and went on playing his cards.

Nella stood by, waiting patiently; and presently, when the game was at an end, Bill said, 'Show her how to play;' and pushed the cards aside.

'That takes long time,' said the German; yet he began to show Nella how to draw the bow across the strings, and where to place the fingers of her left hand, so as to make new notes. She watched him with a breathless patient eagerness. She could not understand one word he said, although she was not as yet English scholar enough to know that he spoke English strangely. She could only watch his hands, and try to fix all he did in her memory. Then he gave her the fiddle again goodnaturedly, and said, 'Now you play.' She tried, but her fingers would not go in the right places, and the notes still came out of tune.

'Oh, I cannot!' she said, as if she were tired, laid down the violin, and presently went off to bed.

It chanced, by-and-by, that the German really did find a job of work to do in Brentholm, and then Bill told him he might sleep at the cottage by paying a small sum for each night.

When Nella afterwards told Mrs. Lester of this arrangement, the school-mistress grew quite excited over the news, and declared that the child should never go back to the cottage. But to her great surprise, Campanella looked very sad at this declaration, and begged that she might stay near the music. It was then her one great joy, and even more, a part of herself; so that no pleasure of any other sort could have consoled her for its loss. For at this time dear Miss Charteris had left Brentholm Meadow-sweet. She had been there more than six weeks; the English lessons had gone on well, and Nella could understand much of what was said to her, when the kind teacher told her one morning, 'I am very sorry to leave my little Nella; we shall only have two more days together; after that I must go back to my own home.'

You may think how grieved Nella was to lose her friend. When the last day came, the lessons were gone through as usual until one o'clock; then Nella dined; and afterwards Miss Charteris led the way through the pretty sunny Rectory garden, with its soft smooth grass dotted with clumps of evergreens, to a little arbour with a table in it and low chairs, and a basket of nice fruit on the table.

'Now we will give ourselves a half-holiday, and have a pleasant afternoon together,' said Miss Charteris. She made Nella sit in one of the low cosy chairs, and gave her some fruit to eat, and talked to her in Italian. Presently, she took up a square parcel, wrapt in white paper, which she had brought there in her hand and laid aside. She opened it, and showed Campanella that it contained two books bound in purple leather; they were a Bible and a Book of Common Prayer. She opened the first page of the Bible, and told Nella to spell some words which were written there in her own beautiful hand.

'CAMPANELLA,

FROM HER LOVING FRIEND,

AMY CHARTERIS,'

the little girl made out. The blood flushed up over all her face for pleasure; but the lady still pointed to some words below: 'He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters.'

'It was God who did that, Nella,' said Miss Charteris gently and gravely. He did it to you as well as to King David, who wrote the verse. You know what I mean, do you not?'

Nella looked at the words again, and then said 'Yes,' very thoughtfully; but quickly looking up with the flush still on her cheeks, and meeting the kind eyes of the friend whom she loved so much, she could

restrain herself no longer, but threw her arms round Miss Charteris's neck, and cried in her own soft tongue, 'Oh, how much I love you for being so very very good!'

Miss Charteris smiled, drew down the two little hands and held them, telling Nella to seat herself on a stool at her feet.

'I have not been very good to you, dear child,' she said. 'If you think what I have done goodness, what must you think of what God has done?' She went on to speak of the great love of our Heavenly Father, and of what we owe to that love, and of all that Campanella herself owed to it, especially perhaps for those blessings which had come to her in the shape of great trials.

"You have had more real trouble than any girl of your age whom I have ever known, Nella,' said Miss Charteris, holding closely the hand of the child, who watched her with thoughtful eyes; and I do not think it is without a purpose that you have been brought so far away from your beautiful home, and given over to so strange a keeper. It is hard for us to tell what God means to work in us, or for us, by the sorrows which He sometimes gives us to bear. It is, perhaps, bold of us to pry into His meaning too closely; and we are apt, when we have answered our own questions quite to our satisfaction, to find at last that we have been making a great mistake, and that God meant something which we had been far too short-sighted to see. But still, when an intention of His seems very plain to us, I think we must be right in humbly laying it to our hearts as a hope and a comfort, and urging on those whom it concerns to carry it out in a way which may please Him. I am talking rather to myself than to you, little one; am I not? I fear you can hardly follow me. What I mean is this: that you have a work laid on you by the very fact of being brought here, to Brentholm; and it seems clear to some of us, who think a great deal about you, that that work is to help poor Bill Waters to a better way of life. He is so anxious to be kind to you, and was so ready and generous in the manner of his taking charge of you from the first, that it is easy to see there is the making of a good man in him. Only, poor fellow! he has had very little chance of learning what life should be; his mother died when he was a little boy, and his father was a bad man, and led him into bad ways. Yet I believe it is not too late to make a Christian of him yet, and I think God is showing us it is not too late, by putting you in his way to give him one more chance. But you must try to do your part of the work, Nella; you must pray to be taught how to act, and you must be kind to Bill, and not shun him because he is rough in his ways. Then, if you are a good girl, and obey Mrs. Lester, and do what this book teaches you to do, (she gently pressed the Bible with her hand, as one presses the hand of a dear friend,) God will surely reward you some day by the gift of that poor man's soul. Will you try to do this work?'

Nella was

meaning.

too young, as yet, entirely to understand the lady's