"'Papa, _he_ can only teach me; I will _not_ leave him, for I must obey music before you, and in him music calls me.' "He ran back to my knee, and there his father left him (but very disconcerted), and I don't know how they settled it at home. But enough for me, there was never any more difficulty, and he and I kept his birthday together; the little candles burned out among the linden-flowers, and beautiful presents came for him and for me from the great house on the ramparts. "And he never left me," added Aronach, with a prodigious pleasure too big to conceal either by word or look, "he never left me until he set off for his travels all over Europe, during which travels I removed, and came up here a long distance from the old place, where I had him all to myself, and he was all to me." "Thanks, dear master, if I too may so call you. I shall always feel that you are; but I did not know how very much you had to do with him." "Thou mayest so name me, because thou art not wanting in veneration, and canst also be _mastered_." "Thanks forever. And I may keep this precious paper? In your own writing, sir, it will be more than if you had said it, you know, though I should have remembered every word. And the story, too, is just as safe as if you had written it for me." And so it was. END OF VOL. I. FOOTNOTE: [17] Famous theorists and contrapuntists of the eighteenth century; the latter was the teacher of Beethoven. THE LAUREL-CROWNED LETTERS. =The Best Letters of Lord Chesterfield.= Edited, with an Introduction, by EDWARD GILPIN JOHNSON. =The Best Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.= Edited, with an Introduction, by OCTAVE THANET. =The Best Letters of Horace Walpole.= Edited, with an Introduction, by ANNA B. MCMAHAN. =The Best Letters of Madame de Sévigné.= Edited, with an Introduction, by EDWARD PLAYFAIR ANDERSON. Each volume is finely printed and bound; 16mo, cloth, gilt tops, price, $1.00. In half calf or half morocco, per vol., $2.75. Of LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS, the _Atlantic Monthly_ says:-- The editor seems to make good his claims to have treated these letters with such discrimination as to render the book really serviceable, not only as a piece of literature, but as a text-book in politeness. Of LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU'S LETTERS, the _New York Star_ says:-- The selection is indeed an excellent one, and the notes by the present editor considerably enhance their value. Of HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS, the _Philadelphia Public Ledger_ says:-- These witty and entertaining letters show Walpole to bear out the promise of his fame,--the prince of letter-writers in an age which elevated the occupation into a fine art. Of MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ'S LETTERS, the _Boston Saturday Gazette_ says:--