"'How came the master's sensibility to take such a different turn from that of the rest of the family?' I asked,--and drew out that the boy, being a genius, had some of the ways of one, and was at times excessively provoking. He had silent fits, when he would sit dreaming, moving his lips, but making no sound. There was no use in trying to rouse him. You might have shaken him to pieces without his soul's giving the least sign of being in his body. Not only this, but, sometimes, when he did sing, he wouldn't sing well, though perhaps it was just when he was most wanted. There were people he never would sing before, if he could help it; and when he was obliged to, he did himself no credit. Some of his caprices of this kind were insupportable. His master was only too indulgent; but one day, it seems, the provocation was too much for him. In a moment of anger, he flung the unlucky boy down the door-steps, or over a bank, or out of the open window, I forget which. Either the push on the chest or the shock of the fall did a harm that was not meant. The master was a good man, and was so accounted. He reproached himself, whenever he saw the ailing boy, and felt as if others reproached him. Better out of sight and out of mind. "So Harry became the owner, or, as he says, the keeper, of a fragment of humanity distinguished from the mass by the name of Orphy: Orphy for Orpheus, I suppose; though Harry is modest for him, and calls him Orfano. He has splendid visions for his protégé, nevertheless. He sees in him the very type and representative of the African. I shouldn't wonder if he were looking forward to the rehabilitation of the race through him. He is to be a Mozart, a Beethoven, a Bach, or, perhaps, something beyond either. The world is to listen and be converted." "I wish you could have brought him here," I said. "Your house is within the twenty miles, and so is Harvey's, or we should have taken him on there with us. But he is well off where he is. Harry, by the aid of our innkeeper,--a Northern man, by the way,--installed him in a comfortable home at Omocqua. We are to take him up there on our return. We expect to be there again on the eighteenth of next month." "So soon?" I exclaimed; for, with the Doctor's words the pang of parting fell on me prematurely. "We mean to stay with you, if you want us so long, until the fifth. We have a few excursions to make yet; but we shall guide ourselves so as to reach Omocqua at the appointed time." "Meet us there," cried Harry. "Meet us there in fifteen days from the time we leave you. Let us keep the nineteenth of April there together." My mother, who had not hitherto taken any part in the conversation, spoke now to express her warm approbation of the plan. This was all that was wanting. The project was ratified. My happiness was freed again from the alloy of insecurity which had begun to mingle with it.