"Really, Star, it is too bad of you to give me such a turn! How can I open the door? Pray come in directly, and tell me what is the matter." He boggled at the lock for a minute or two, but at last admitted himself. "Why, Star, how frightened you look! Have you been flogged at last? and is the master home already?" "No, no, Charles! Something most extraordinary." I really could but laugh, the child repeated the words with such an awe. "A gentleman, Charles, has come. He opened my door while I was practising. I should have been dreadfully frightened, but he was so kind, and came in so gently. He thought you were here, Charles, and asked for you; he says he does not know your name, but that he could tell me whether you were here if I would describe you. I said how pale you were, with such dark eyes, and about your playing, and he said,-- "'All right, go and fetch him, or send him to me: will you be so kind?'" "How could you be quite sure? It may be some one for Iskar, who is pale, and has dark eyes." "He said it was the violin that came at Christmas, I was to send; and you came at Christmas. Besides, he looks very like a friend you would have; he is not like anybody else." "What is he like, Star?" "His face is so very bright and clever that I could not look at it; but I saw his beautiful curling hair. I never saw such curling hair." "Come in with me, then, Star." "No, he said I was not to come too, that I might go on with my music. He calls it 'music,' but I don't think it is much like it." Now, I knew who was there as well as if an angel had spoken to me and said, "It is he for whom you waited." Had I not known in very assurance, I should have forced my little friend to go back with me, that I might not meet alone a stranger; as it was, I only longed to fly, and to fly alone into that presence, for which I then felt I had been waiting, though I had known it not. I rushed from my little prison enfranchised, ecstatic; but I misapprehended my own sensations. The magnetic power was so appalling that as I reached the threshold of that other room a dark shock came over my eyes, and partly from my haste, in part from that dazzling blindness, I staggered and fell across the doorway, and could not try to rise.