“I helped to make it--I strained it,” Esther interrupted, “but I never tasted any in my life.” Mr. Campbell laid his hand on her head. “This is to you--to your art.” Glenn Andrews motioned to her, lifted his glass and sipped the wine, slowly realizing it was beautiful to every sense. Esther stole into the parlor, and was playing her violin before they knew it. They followed her in. It was an old-time parlor with black, carved furniture, a slender legged center table, polished as smooth as a mirror, holding a china vase of curious design, in which leaned one long stemmed rose, as red as the wine that had made their hearts large and soft. The walls were almost hidden by family portraits that reached from the ceiling to the floor, set in deep tarnished gilt frames. The carpet had a shred of tracery suggesting a design--it might have been only a shadow of gorgeous wreaths that had been worn away by dear feet that had long gone--the whole faint impression still hallowed by their tread. Esther loved her violin irregularly. This was a time when she really needed it. They went in very quietly, hoping not to interrupt her. The soft, tremulous tones that she had not meant to give, showed that she was excited, unnerved. Just as Glenn was about to utter an apology for the confusion, his face became serious and silent. He was peculiarly sensitive to the influence of the violin. He was conscious of a dreamy exaltation, and the awakening of a new enthusiasm. The music had burst into a wild, passionate tenderness, as though she was daringly investing all her dreams with life-throbbing human life--the tone fairly voicing the longing of her soul. It was infinitely touching, infinitely tender. A quick flush went up to his forehead and died out again, as the music trembled into stillness, and she lowered the violin, exhausted. “You must be very proud of her,” Glenn turned to the old man, “I think she has a future.” “She ought to have a chance for it,” said Mr. Campbell. A glance from Esther’s flushed face to the suddenly compressed lips of her grandfather made Glenn understand that that was as near to complaint as he ever came. He might have been impatient in his days of strength, but on the coming of adversity this proud man had learned to wait in silence. He seldom breathed a syllable of the sorrow he bore on account of his hands being tied. “Practice is half the battle; you ought to spend hours at it every day,” Glenn said to Esther as she tossed her head. “I don’t ever expect to study under anyone again. What’s the use going half way when I know I can never go the other half?” “But you will if you only have belief in yourself.” Mr. Campbell was delighted as he listened. Here was someone interested in his little girl. He trusted a kindliness so genuine, an interest so evidently sincere. A child’s soul is easily impressed, responsive to the first panorama that passes before it. Mr. Campbell hoped Glenn Andrews would come again. CHAPTER VIII.