“No,” said the old man, handing back the fiddle. “I dar' not. I haven't the courage for it. It's a poor folly, maybe, for a man o' my years to talk o' breakin' his heart over a toy like that, and yet, if the tone wasn't to come after all! That 'nd be a bitter pill, Reuben. No, no. It's a thousand to one the power's left me, but theer's just a chance it hasn't. I feel it theer.” The gaunt left-hand fingers made just such a strenuous swift and subtle motion as Reuben's had made a minute earlier. “And yet it mightn't be.” Reuben reached out the violin towards him, but he recoiled from it and arose. “No, no. I dar'n't fail,” he said, with a gray smile. “I darn't risk it. Take her away, lad. No, lend her here. A man as hasn't pluck enow in his inwards for a thing o' that kind--Lend her here!” He seized the instrument, tucked it once more beneath his chin, and with closed eyes laid the bow upon the strings. His left foot, stretched firmly out in advance of the right, beat noiselessly upon the turf, as if it marked the movement of a prelude inaudible except to him. Then the bow gripped the strings, and sounded one soft, long-drawn, melancholy note. A little movement of the brows, a scarcely discernible nod of the head marked his approval of the tone, and after marking anew the cadence of that airy prelude he began to play. For a minute or more his resolve and excitement carried him along, but suddenly a note sounded false and he stopped. “Ah-h-h!” he cried, shaking his head as if to banish the sound from his ears, “take her, Reuben, take her. Give her a sweet note or two to take the taste o' that out of her mouth. Poor thing! Strike up, lad--anything. Strike up!” Reuben dashed into “The Wind that Shakes the Barley!” and Ezra, with his gaunt hands folded behind him, walked twice or thrice the length of the grass-plot. “Theer's no fool like an old fool,” he said, when he paused at his nephew's side. “Theer's nothing as is longed for like that as can niver be got at. Good-day, lad. Tek her away and niver let anybody maul her i' that fashion again, poor thing. I'll rest a while. Good-day, Reuben.” Reuben thus dismissed shook hands and went his way, bearing his uncle's gift with him. His way took him to Fuller's house, and finding Ruth alone there he displayed his treasure and spent an hour in talk. If he had said then and there what he wanted to say, the historic Muse must needs have rested with him. But since, in spite of the promptings of his own desire, the favorableness of the time, and the delightful confusions of silence which overcame both Ruth and himself in the course of his visit, he said no more than any enthusiast in music might have said to any pretty girl who was disposed to listen to him, the historic Muse is free to follow Joseph Beaker, with whom she has present business.