"But how," I replied, "can you be sorry now? We ought to be most gloriously happy to find ourselves here. But you fret, my dear little boy, and mope, and that makes you thin, and takes the strength out of you that you want for music." "Ah! that is not it. You don't know, Charles, how I feel; I know you don't, for you love your violin." "I should think I did!" "Well, I am strange to it, and don't love it,--at least, don't love to play it." "But why did you not tell your father so before he sent you here? You know you will never do anything well that you don't love to do,--it is impossible. And not to love the violin, Star, for shame!" "It is not that,--oh, don't be angry with me!--but my music is in the beautiful cold keys." "Darling little Star! I beg your pardon; but then, why don't you learn the piano?" "But Charles, I cannot. I was sent here to learn the violin, and I _must_ study it. Aronach does not let any one study the pianoforte under him now." "He did then?" "Yes, a long time ago, when he lived in another place, about thirty miles off. Have you heard Aronach play the organ?" "No; have you?" "Oh! every Sunday." "You don't say so, Star! is it not delicious?" "Charles, I like it best of all the days in the week, because he plays. Such different playing from what they have at church in England!" "I shall go up to the organ and see him play." "Charles, Charles, don't; please don't,--we never do!" "Then I shall be the first, for go I must. There is precious Aronach himself. I will run after him wherever he goes." I did so most rudely--forsaking Starwood, who did not dare to follow me; but I would not miss the opportunity. I spun after Aronach so noiselessly as that he had no notion I was following, though in general he had eyes behind; and he did not perceive me until the service had absolutely begun. Then I made myself visible, and caught a frown, which was accompanied by a helpless condition truly edifying; for his arms and hands and eyes and feet were all equally on service. I therefore remained, and made out more about the instrument than I had made out my whole life before. His was a genuine organ-hand, that could stretch itself indefinitely, and yet double up so crawlingly that the fingers, as they lay, were like stems of corrugated ivory; and I watched only less than I listened. The choir--so full and perfect, trained to every individual--mounted its effects, as it were, upon those of the controlling harmonies. There was a depth in these that supported their air-waving tones, as pillars solid and polished a vaulted roof, where shadows waver and nestle. I found a book, and sang at intervals, but generally preferred to receive the actual impression. I think my first mother-feeling for Germany was born that Sunday in pleasurable pain.