It was one of those Friday evenings, then, when the smell of roast apples steeping in hot toddy came wafting out the portals of Malachi's pantry--a smell of such convincing pungency that even the most infrequent of frequenters having once inhaled it, would have known at the first whiff that some musical function was in order. The night was to be one of unusual interest. Nathan Gill and Max linger were expected, and Miss Lavinia Clendenning, completing with Richard a quartette for 'cello, flute, piano, and violin, for which Unger had arranged Beethoven's Overture to "Fidelio." Nathan, of course, arrived first. On ordinary occasions another of those quaint ceremonies for which the house was famous would always take place when the old flute-player entered the drawing-room--a ceremony which brought a smile to the lips of those who had watched it for years, and which to this day brings one to those who recall it. Nathan, with a look of quizzical anxiety on his pinched face, would tiptoe cautiously into the room, peering about to make sure of Richard's presence, his thin, almost transparent fingers outspread before him to show Richard that they were empty. Richard would step forward and, with a tone of assumed solicitude in his voice, would say: "Don't tell me, Nathan, that you have forgotten your flute?" and Nathan, pausing for a moment, would suddenly break into a smile, and with a queer little note of surprise in his throat, and a twinkle in his eye, would make answer by slowly drawing from his coat-tail pocket the three unjointed pieces, holding them up with an air of triumph and slowly putting them together. Then these two old "Merry-Andrews" would lock arms and stroll into the library, laughing like school-boys. To-night, however, as Nathan had been specially invited to play, this little ceremony was omitted. On entering the hall the musician gave his long, black, pen-wiper cloak and his hat to Malachi, and supporting himself by his delicate fingers laid flat on the hall-table, extended first one thin leg, and then the other, while that obsequious darky unbuttoned his gaiters. His feet free, he straightened himself up, pulled the precious flute from his coat-tail pocket and carefully joined the parts. This done, he gave a look into the hall-mirror, puffed out his scarf, combed his straight white hair forward over his ears with his fingers, and at Malachi's announcement glided through the open doorway to Mrs. Horn's chair, the flute in his hand held straight out as an orator would have held his roll. The hostess, who had been sitting by the fire, her white gossamer shawl about her spare shoulders, rose from her high-backed chair and, laying aside her knitting-needles and wools, greeted the musician with as much cordiality--and it must be confessed with as much ceremony--as if she had not seen him a dozen times that week. One of the charms of the Horn mansion lay in these delightful blendings of affection and formality.