"Aha! There is some one who remembers him at this very place--who heard him just once and never forgot it. I might as well tell you: it is the brother of the inn-keeper's wife at Colthorpe; he used to be the hostler, but is too old now. He plays the violin himself, at weddings, sometimes, and dances--but not much, dear. He taught me, but I have gone far ahead--oh, far ahead of him now! He knows when it is good, however, and you should hear what he says of me and my playing. You must see him and ask him. He had climbed up from outside into the window when once my father played at Colthorpe, and he can speak of it as if it had happened yesterday. (He says that I am very like my father, that any one would know me who had seen him. He knew, before asking, whose son I was. Only, my father wore his hair long; well, I will wear my hair long!) He says that, as he played, every trouble he had ever had came back to him, even the death of a dog, and he could not help crying--but he liked it; he enjoyed feeling bad. And he says that it made him see plain before him, but not very plain either, a lot of things he had only heard folks talk about--the shepherds in the East, for instance, with the angels singing good-will in a hole in the clouds. And he knew for sure, he says, how it would have felt if the girl he wanted hadn't married some one else and gone to live away, but had taken him. I asked him, the other day, if I could make him feel those things. He said, 'Not yet, not quite yet;' but he thought I was beginning. He has a number of music sheets; I can read the notes much quicker than he already, though he taught me. But I don't care for those; there must be others much better than those! Those are nothing! I like better what I make up myself than I do those. Did you notice?--but no, you must have been too far--how quickly I can play some passages? My left fingers go like a spider, and it is so easy for them! Giles says my hand is like my father's--he remembers it--a true violinist's hand. I feel that it can do anything, dear--anything! And I mean that it shall do such things! Look at it, mother!" and he held up the thin, unboyishly delicate, angular hand, stronger in appearance than the rest of his body. "Is it like my father's? You are the one, of course, that remembers best. Is it like my father's?" "Oh, yes--yes!" she almost moaned. He did not seem to perceive her impatience, but contemplated his own hand a little while, calmly sure that he must be an object of pride to her now. "It is quite unlike Hector's, at least. I should like to see him try to play with his pink paws!" "He might not be able to play," said Emmie, "but he will, I dare say, do something quite as useful."