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and then squeezing the hard wooden neck of the violin, her dear old violin which lay on her lap. Madame Mallet had smiled when she saw it, and said, 'We will soon give you a handsomer fiddle than that, my dear.' But Nella had felt rather angry than grateful; she felt as a girl would feel if somebody had been rude enough to say to her that her sister was ugly.

When the train stopped at a large station for ten minutes, Madame replaced the hood by the bonnet again, leaving the strings afloat; then took Nella to the refreshment-room and gave her a big bun. As for herself, she ate quite a large pork pie. Then she popped up her feet, and fell asleep again.

Before the evening closed in, the air began to grow murky and dim with the smoke from many houses. Long rows of them began to appear beside the railway, turning their backs to it and holding it aloof with smoky gardens, which nevertheless were now gay with yellow crocuses. Then, tickets were collected; Madame tied on the bonnet 'for good and all,' as folks say; the train, after dragging its length on slowly for a while, stopped finally in a vast, dim, windy hall, full of noise and ugliness and confusion, which was, in fact, the Waterloo Bridge Station, London. Nella's trunk was rescued from a chaos of other trunks; a porter called a cab; our friends got in; the porter stood a long time holding the door open; Madame fumbled in her pocket and found twopence. The porter took it, looking the other way, and was then surprised to find money in his hand. The cab rattled and shook our travellers, little and big, through long streets where everything looked dirty, and where dabs of light were beginning to appear in the shop windows. It stopped at last in a quiet row before a door with two brass plates on it. On one was written, 'Monsieur Mallet.'

By this time, Nella's brain seemed whirling with all the new unrestful things she had seen. She made halt at last in a little hot room with a piano in it, and a general litter, and a smell of tobacco as strong as that in Bill's kitchen, and Monsieur, in a smart dressing-gown, smoking by the fire behind a newspaper. He got up from his chair.

'Well, my ducky,' said Madame.

'Safely returned, my love,' said Monsieur. 'I am glad to see you, my dear; make yourself happy here.' He spoke these last words to little Nella in quite a polite voice, as though she were a grown-up young lady, and then he sat gracefully down again.

Nella was very sleepy and tired. When Madame Mallet took her up-stairs and showed her a small room which was to be her own, she longed to lie down on the bed, hungry though she was, and go to sleep at once. It was not a very inviting room, however; it had the faded look of all lodging-house rooms; the carpet and paper were dingy, and there were no pictures. Nella thought it would look prettier when she had hung over the bed her 'Jesus Blessing Little Children,' which was now in her box. Then she washed her face and hands; and presently Madame came to fetch her, and they went down to the little parlour, where a nice

hot supper with coffee was ready for them. It did Nella good, and she slept all the better for it afterwards in that dingy little bed. She would have felt very lonely in the strange room with none but strange people within call, but that she had her dear familiar violin to lie on the pillow beside her like the head of a beloved friend. She had also unpacked her picture by this time, and she was glad even in the dark to know that that loving heavenly face was placed where she would be able to see it when her eyes first opened in the morning. Also when, in her trustful childish prayers, she begged for a blessing on dear Miss Charteris, she felt as if that kind face too were drawn near to her.

On the very next morning Nella's new master came. No time was to be lost in making a musician of her. Monsieur Mallet had speculated on her, and he wanted quick returns for the money he was going to spend. He had gone out early, very spruce and neat, to give singing lessons, so that his wife took Nella's trembling hand, when a sharp ring at the doorbell was heard, to lead her to the room where her master was waiting for her.

Madame Mallet at home was not quite so well-favoured an object as Madame Mallet out a-visiting; the red and white complexion was less delicately managed; the black velvet was replaced by a silk all fluttering with ribbons, altogether smart and flimsy. But a kind simple heart beat under all the tawdry finery. 'Poor little soul!' she said, bending down to give Nella a kiss before the dreadful door was opened. 'You're frightened, aren't you? Never mind; be a good girl and play as well as you can. He won't eat you, you know.'

The lesson was to proceed not in the little stuffy room where supper had been eaten, but in one larger and more decked out, with mirrors and glass and French pictures and amber damask and lace, not quite clean; all rather dingily smart, like its mistress. The new master was stamping up and down impatiently, like a lion in a cage. He was a very great man measured by music, but a very little man measured by inches. He was five feet and a half high, thin, with straight dark hair and spectacles, and quick sharp movements, and quick sharp speech; this last often so abrupt, indeed, as to seem rude. He came up in a great hurry to shake hands with Madame, as though there were no time to spare for civilities.

'Is this the child I'm to put some music into?' he asked, looking at Nella, who felt afraid of him, and clung closer to her kind fat friend. 'Bless you! Mr. Mansworth, she's got plenty of that in her already,' answered the lady, in her slow, thick, good-natured voice.

'It's ten to one if she has,' said Mr. Mansworth, turning away to open the piano, just because he was restless and must be doing something. 'These self-taught geniuses are seldom good for anything. Your husband's made a mistake again, Madame; see if he hasn't.'

Madame gave a fat contented chuckle, and sank down on a sofa.

Mr. Mansworth sat down to the piano, and ran up a few notes. 'La la la la la; can you sing, child?'

'I have the ugly voice,' replied Nella timidly.

'An ugly voice, have you? I dare say you know nothing about it. Try; come! La la la la la!'

Nella tried, as she was bid, and made a husky little squeak, for she had no voice at all for singing. Mr. Mansworth jumped off his musicstool.

'That's enough; no music there,' he said quite angrily, as if Nella had made her own voice.

'It's the violin, you know, that you are to teach her,' put in Madame quietly. Her slow soft voice came like oil on the troubled waters of his hurried speaking.

'Well, get your fiddle, child; let's hear you. I dare say it's the same with that.'

Nella went in a great hurry and tremour to fetch her violin, but she knew well enough that she would not be able to play a note; the excitable bustling little fellow had jarred all her system.

'Now then, come, play me something,' he cried, the moment she reentered; and although Madame interfered to tell him that he was worrying the child, he could not wait nor ask quietly.

'I can't play now, Signor,' said Nella, shaking her head and looking quite scared. But her master would take no denial. She must play, he said; she could play something, he supposed; 'Pop goes the Weazel,' at any rate. Nella had never heard of 'Pop goes the Weazel,' but she grew so frightened lest something dreadful should happen to him if he were to excite himself much longer-lest his bird-like little head would pop off his shoulders, or all his quick bird-like little body fly into tiny bits perhaps that she drew her bow across the strings to quiet him at any cost, though she could only produce from them the simplest tune she knew, and that ill-played.

'Bless my soul!' cried Mr. Mansworth, stamping with impatience; ' bless my soul! what do you call that, eh? If that's all your geniuses are good for Give us the fiddle!' He snatched it from her, and, still tramping up and down, his black hair flying two feet behind him, his coat-tails swinging in all directions, he began to play, oh! such wild mad music, like witches dancing, and yet how beautiful! There were plenty of stories to be made out of this; not even her mother's singing had conjured up more lively visions in Nella's mind. She saw clouds and storms and lightning, and dark pines swaying in the wind, and gleaming peaks jutting out of heavy mists; great dreary moorlands and lonely meres and long flights of wild birds. The little musician went striding to and fro, looking like a prophet of old with the spirit of prophecy on him. Madame murmured piteously, 'Dear, dear, how he is wearing my best carpet!' but no one heard her, for the violinist was lost in his music, and Nella was drinking it in with all her being. Nella the musician was another creature from Nella the timid orphan.

At last Mr. Mansworth stopped with a long breath, and wiped his

forehead, which was quite wet. 'There now; go on again, if you can,' he said, holding out the fiddle to the child.

She came forward and took it-Nella the musician now. Forgetting all about the strange city she was in, and the strange man who was listening to her, she drew her bow again across the strings, and went on painting her pictures. The swaying pines and snowy peaks were very grand, but not so sweet to her as the gentle swelling round the lakes, and the woods with blue lines of light among their boughs, where it was delicious to rest from the hot sun. There had been such near her first home, and these she played.

'Um, um, um!' grunted Mr. Mansworth at first, throwing himself about in his chair. 'Fanciful, fanciful! That's how talent is frittered away. Mallet won't make any money out of her, that's certain.' Byand-by, however, he stopped these little grunts, which Nella did not hear; he grew quiet, he sat quite still; he lowered his eyebrows till they were straight over his eyes in a black frown, he leaned back, clasping one knee with his two hands.

At last, Campanella had played out her fancies and stopped. The little man got up, seized both her hands, and shook them till the slender wrists ached.

'Bravo, bravo!' he cried; 'you'll do ;-she'll do, Madame; no tinsel here; real gold here; your husband is a man of judgment.-Bravo, little girl! you and I will be friends.'

Then he changed again all on a sudden, and became very grave and business-like. 'Come now, we must lose no time. You know you'll have to unlearn all that fatal facility of yours. It won't do to go on playing pretty pictures out of your own head if you are to be a musician. We must work, we must drudge. We are not like sculptors; no one can hew our blocks for us and bring them from the quarry to our studios all tempting and handy for the chisel. We must quarry our own marble, and be our own beasts of burden. Music is a hard mistress, but she's worth working for, little girl, you'll find that. She gives good wages.'

'I'm sure began Madame, plaintively. The enthusiastic little fellow waved her aside impatiently. 'Not money wages: oh, no! I don't speak of anything so low as that. What's money ? Can any number of little round bits of gold pay a man for one poetical thought? Pshaw! Music's an art; she pays the soul, not the pockets; she gives you the true gold; moments of happiness, Madame, of bliss-yes!-Now come, my dear, let's have our lesson.'

He fell at once an octave in tone and a whole key-board in manner, and became a quiet sensible fellow, ready to begin with Nella from the very first beginning of music-lessons. She thought she had never seen anyone half so funny; she almost fancied he must be mad. But he was not mad; he was only a man governed by passion for art. master, and Nella was a good pupil, and learned well. (To be continued.)

He was a good

LENA'S SEVEN BIRTH-DAYS.

CHAPTER VII.

ANOTHER birth-day-my twentieth; the day we had once hoped would have been our wedding-day. I am very sad to-day, very sad indeedthough all my days now seem more or less sad; the last six months have been so full of sorrow. Yet to-day is not without its gleam of hope, its cause for thankfulness; for Herbert returned home with my father and mother from London yesterday, and he is certainly much better than when he went away ten weeks ago. I can see a great change in him. One eye is nearly right, the other, alas! still dark, and I fear hopelessly so. Then his hair, which was kept quite short till he left home, has been allowed to grow again, and is thick and glossy and waving as it ever was; and his whiskers are growing too, and hiding the scar on his cheek, which is a great comfort; he is fatter also, and looks better altogether. He no longer keeps his arm in a sling, though as yet he can't use it freely; but the doctors have told him that it will become quite strong again in time, and by submitting to the necessary means. So for all this I, especially, ought to be and am thankful. Then I am so glad to have my dearest mother home again. I had never been away from her before, and missed her sweet, kind, loving presence so much. It was the prettiest thing to see the meeting between her and little Agnes. The child was wild with joy, and danced about, and hung round Mother's neck, kissing her, and calling her by such a torrent of dear names, and pouring out as fast as words would let her, all that she had been doing during the long absence; and Mother kept looking at the little creature with tears in her eyes, and kissing her, and making comments on her growth, and long hair, and pretty pink dress new for the occasion, and evidently full of a great content to be home again and with her darling. Papa greeted me quite warmly, which gave me an unwonted feeling of gladness; but he has not asked once after Charley. Herbert, on the contrary, made me come and sit by him, and read him all I would of Charley's letters. Oh! how this great trial has altered Herbert, or developed him, I don't know which— but perhaps it has acted in both ways; he is a noble fellow now. No one has ever heard a complaining word from him; and as for his thoughts of my Charley, they seem to be-How can we make up to him for the grief which the accident caused by him has given him? Herbert has had a crayon sketch taken of himself just as he is now, to send out to Charley, that Charley may see that he is not so entirely disfigured as he was at first. We were looking at it together to-day, and he said to me with somewhat of his old fun and jaunty manner, 'Not so bad a face and figure, after all; good enough for a baronet's daughter, though maybe I must relinquish the earl's, which I once

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