The musical box still hung at his side in its traveling-case of leather. As soon as he had poured out the cup of tea, he unbuckled the strap, removed the covering from the box, and placed it on the table near him. His eyes wandered hesitatingly toward Sarah, as he did this; he leaned forward, his lips trembling a little, his hand trifling uneasily with the empty leather case that now lay on his knees, and said to her in low, unsteady tones-- "You will hear a little farewell song of Mozart? It may be a long time, Sarah, before he can play to you again. A little farewell song, my child, before you go?" His hand stole up gently from the leather case to the table, and set the box playing the same air that Sarah had heard on the evening when she entered the parlor, after her journey from Somersetshire, and found him sitting alone listening to the music. What depths of sorrow there were now in those few simple notes! What mournful memories of past times gathered and swelled in the heart at the bidding of that one little plaintive melody! Sarah could not summon the courage to lift her eyes to the old man's face--they might have betrayed to him that she was thinking of the days when the box that he treasured so dearly played the air they were listening to now by the bedside of his dying child. The stop had not been set, and the melody, after it had come to an end, began again. But now, after the first few bars, the notes succeeded one another more and more slowly--the air grew less and less recognizable--dropped at last to three notes, following each other at long intervals--then ceased altogether. The chain that governed the action of the machinery had all run out; Mozart's farewell song was silenced on a sudden, like a voice that had broken down. The old man started, looked earnestly at his niece, and threw the leather case over the box as if he desired to shut out the sight of it. "The music stopped so," he whispered to himself, in his own language, "when little Joseph died! Don't go!" he added quickly, in English, almost before Sarah had time to feel surprised at the singular change that had taken place in his voice and manner. "Don't go! Think better of it, and stop with me." "I have no choice, uncle, but to leave you--indeed, indeed I have not! You don't think me ungrateful? Comfort me at the last moment by telling me that!" He pressed her hand in silence, and kissed her on both cheeks. "My heart is very heavy for you, Sarah," he said. "The fear has come to me that it is not for your own good that you are going away from Uncle Joseph now!" "I have no choice," she sadly repeated--"no choice but to leave you." "It is time, then, to get the parting over." The cloud of doubt and fear that had altered his face, from the moment when the music came to its untimely end, seemed to darken, when he had said those words. He took up the basket which he had kept so carefully at his feet, and led the way out in silence.