"Very good," observed he, eyeing the scrawl with admiration; then a thought shot through his brain that seemed to turn him to stone, for he stood motionless, with head thrown back and pen uplifted, while the silvery moonlight, bathing him from head to foot, transfixed him into a marble statue of expectancy. "I wonder if I could, I wonder if I could!" he whispered excitedly. "I'll try now, this very night. If I could get hold of Christoff's fugues, and copy them here in the moonlight, I should have a book of my own, and still keep my promise not to play out of his." Turning to the cupboard that held the coveted treasure, Sebastian gazed wistfully into its second shelf. The doors were of strong steel lattice work, and Sebastian saw that it would be impossible either to insert his hand through the finely interlaced bars, or to bend them in the hope of securing a wider opening. The boy's burning desire to obtain the music, and his sense of the justice of his purpose, would not let him draw back without a mighty effort. Casting about for some means of assistance, his eye fell upon his brother's violin case. Opening this, he hastily extracted the bow, strong and slender, inserted it between the powerful wires, deftly worked the roll of music to and fro, drawing it ever nearer until it lay at the outer edge of the shelf. Slipping one finger and thumb through the mesh, he seized the roll firmly and drew it from the cabinet. For a moment he could do nothing but hug the volume madly to his breast, in the joy of his accomplishment; then running noiselessly up to his room for copy-paper, he speedily returned, spread the sheets before him on his sister's table, drew up a chair, and set to work. Swiftly and steadily he wrote, bending very low above the page, that he might read his text correctly. He took no note of the flight of time, but as the moon rose higher in the heavens, his pages grew shadowy, and he was obliged to draw the table into the sheen of her passing radiance. The fire died out, the room grew cold, and the boy from time to time threw down his pen, and beat and blew upon his benumbed fingers, warming them to further activity. At last the light failed utterly, and in the gloom Sebastian rose, carefully rolled his brother's manuscript, strapped it as usual, pushed it through the lattice, adjusted it to its former position by aid of the violin bow, gathered up his freshly written sheets, and crept cautiously to his room. Next morning he met his brother at breakfast, and Christoff secretly wondered that the boy wore so cheerful a countenance. No reference was made to the distressing scene of yesterday, and the brothers set off together, Christoff on his way to a pupil, and Sebastian to school, quite as though the painful episode had not happened. Sebastian attended his various classes like one in a dream, for his mind was filled with his daring enterprise, and the tremendous effort he must put forth before his book should be completed.