feverish. Like the unhappy owner of the
deceased dog known as Tray, I was sick:
I was wretched. I was wasting away. I
was under articles to appear that night at
the Misses Marjoram's, for an evening party.
Be sure to bring the violoncello,—Mrs. Hoblush,
I think they called it. Weak-minded
joke, worthy of the dwindled souls from
which it emanated! How my soul loathed
that wretched Tomfoolery! Why should my
lot be, to go through the world linked to a
coffin-shaped case?  Man was surely made
for other and more noble aims.

"What shall we play to-night?" said the
elder Marjoram, greedily turning over the
pages of her music.  "Shall we have Mozart,
Beethoven, or Mendelssohn?"

I heard her, but heeded not.

"Suppose we try that noble symphony of
Mozart, which always sounds like Heaven!"
she said, in one of those absurd fits of
enthusiasm.

I looked at her vacantly, scarcely comprehending
the force of the remark, and then let
my bow wander off upon the strings into a
wild, unearthly chaunt, full of a despairing
pathos. They listened in wrapt attention,
while I went on still discording the weird-like
strain—now high, now low—quivering,
passionate, fluttering, stealing. I knew not
what I played, and yet it had shape and form
and measure; for there was that within me
which should have vent at all risks.

"What is it?" said those who had been
hearkening while I played on for a very
considerable period. (I fancy I should have
gone on thus the whole night long.) "What
is it ?" they asked again, in hushed tones.

I burst into a hoarse laugh. "What
would you say to an Irish tune? Ha, ha!
Hearken again." Then I fell off at once into
this witching extemporization. "I'll play no
more to-night," I said, at last. "My brain's
on fire; I am unwell!" And so, laying
down my bow without a word more, I passed
softly from the room. I could not have
borne that wretched drumming; it would
have driven me mad. So I went forth, and
wandered up and down for hours about her
dwelling,—the Penguins' dwelling. There
was a light burning in the top window. I had
a fearful cold and sore throat next morning,
and could scarcely speak.

My soul was languishing for her. I was
being wasted with an internal fire. Somebody
said there were two hectic spots on my
cheeks. Rector Blowers, coarse mortal, kept
making low, unfeeling jokes, as it seemed to
me very unbecoming one of his cloth. But, for
his grey hairs, as he knows full well, he
durst not so use me. What a change has
been wrought on this poor bosom! My little
ones, that is to say the children and orphans
of the parish whom I used to catechise
sweetly of evenings in the chancel, when the
gorgeous sunset was shining in through the
golden pane, are grown to be a positive
nuisance—as unruly creatures as were
ever gotten together. I tell them, sternly,
they must mind what they are about,—no
more of this fooling or it will be worse for
them, and I send two off home whimpering.
But, returning to my own homestead at
noontide, there was Balm of Gilead waiting
for me in a little pink tri-cornered note,
which, I was told, had been sent from
Penguinville. In the little tri-cornered note, it
was hoped that Reverend Alfred Hoblush
would come and drink tea that evening, and
oblige mine sincerely, Alicia Penguin.

Oblige mine sincerely! ay, five hundred
times over! So, that night, I arrayed myself
in my shining dress-coat with the stand-up
collar and the beautiful Oxford vest, and set
forth. Coarse Blowers wished to know "was I
going to a rendezvous?"

She was transcendently beautiful that night;
looking out on me as from a white cloud of
floating muslin. The Penguins, I suppose, were
present. It is unlikely they would leave her
to entertain me alone; but, on that head, I
cannot speak with certainty. At all events,
I took notice of dusky outlines moving about,
which, I suppose, were Penguins. How
musical was her voice—her speaking voice
that is—flavoured daintily with ever so
little of a juicy brogue! "Could I play?" she
asked (the coffin was standing on end below
in the hall). Come, let that big tea-chest o'
mine be brought in. Come, I must open that
fiddle-kease and give them a tchune. That
dainty brogue gave such a luscious
sweetness to all she said! So the fiddle-kease
was brought in and opened, and I sat down
—in company, I believe, with a Penguin
presiding at the pianoforte.

"How tenderly he holds it," I heard her
whisper.

I played for her, something short and
expressive, into which I threw my whole soul.
It evidently pleased her.

"Do you know anything lively?" she
asked, " Ballymaloney Ora, or Planxty
Murphy, or—"

"No!" I knew none of those national
airs.

"Where have ye been brought up?" she
asked, contemptuously. I groaned. "Where,
indeed? Why had I not been grounded
in Ballymalony, and the other lilts? I
would borrow a book of Hibernian tunes
and apply myself to that study. Stay," I
said, with extraordinary courage, "you shall
be my instructress, lovely Islander!"

"Done! " she said, with a scream of laughter.
"But I have another pupil to begin teaching
of. Do you know Mr. Nairo?"

I did not know the gentleman.

"He will be here to-morrow or next day;
and a fine, handsome fellow he is."

I felt a sharp, hot pang pass through me.
Who was this Nairo?