It was not one of the days upon which he gave lessons. There was only the ripple of water over the stones and the rustle of leaves that occasionally blew down from the trees, to break the profound quiet of the place as he passed through his gate. Not one word had been spoken, and still in perfect silence he carried the frail little being, that he could feel trembling from head to foot—he carried her across the broad veranda and into the pleasant parlor—not the room that the scholars used, but where his cottage-organ stood. Then he drew the sofa up beside the instrument and laid her down upon it. Her fingers unclasped with a convulsive movement, and Franz turned his face away, for the child had not uttered a sound. Her eyes, dry and unnaturally bright, wore a startled look, a mute, beseeching expression, like the eyes of a wounded animal, and the pallor of her countenance, that had a wild grief branded upon it, was almost as ghastly in hue as death. It was suffering terrible to behold, and the hands of the strong man trembled as he opened the mahogany case of his organ. There was a moment’s silence; then music, soft and sorrowful, floated out on the air gently, almost timidly; so very mournful, that the strain, beautiful though it was, seemed to have in it a human cry of pain. It was a language that could appeal to the heart when word or lip failed. The child’s whole frame shook beneath the heavy sobs that swelled up in her throat, and the great grief had opened its flood-gates. Hour after hour he played untiringly, while the violence of the storm spent itself. The music, at first sorrowful, hurt, had cried out in its pain; then it grew into a measure so yearning, it seemed the very genius of sympathy. Making an intense appeal, it swelled into a great passion, which gradually became exhausted by its own intense vehemence, until about the going down of the sun it died. And the child slept. The wild storm of anguish was over. Upon the face, the thin, pale face of the little girl in her slumber, there shone an expression of such absolute rest that Franz, with a sudden movement, bent down his head and listened. Had she passed with the music to the land where there are strains that swell into a _gloria_ never ending? He held his breath. Was this the reflection of that peace eternal, that rest which endureth forever? A sob quivered for a moment on her features, and escaped from the lips of the sleeper. No, no, for sorrow showed its painful presence. She was not dead, and, at the sigh, sad though it was to see, the man arose with a smothered exclamation of relief.