One day when Frolic was lying at the school house door, where it learned a great deal listening to the recitations, the teacher read aloud the story of Orpheus, who could tame wild animals with his lyre, and then went on to say that she had heard of music by which animals might be changed into persons. Frolic's white ears were pricked up, and every word was treasured, and thought over, day after day. The children wondered why the little dog did not play with them as usual; they did not know how eagerly it was wandering about, listening to every strain of music it could catch. The young ladies who played on the piano could not imagine why that little dog was always under the windows, and why it gave such a hopeful bark every time they began a new Polka or Sehnsucht, and why it whined so sadly every time it was over. When some soldiers marched through the village, they said the dog had better enlist, he seemed so fond of the trumpet and drum. When the hand organ players came and excruciated the villagers with a wiry “Last Rose of Summer,” they laughed to see the excited creature jumping about, and one of them would have carried it off for a dancing dog, if the grandmother had not run screaming after him. The old black man who played on the fiddle, for the villagers to dance in the town hall, said he could not guess why Frolic had taken such a fancy to Minerva's Quickstep. The congregation could scarcely refrain from laughing to hear the dismal howl the dog would set up in the church porch when the whole choir started off in “Old Hundred,” as if it were “Catch who can;” and young Edgar, who played on the flute in summer twilights, was quite gratified to find Frolic always lying at his feet, with wistful eyes, and imagined himself a second Orpheus. But one day, when he had played a most unheard-of melody, Frolic thought that might possibly be the magical one, and annoyed the young man so much, by jumping upon him, that he gave the poor creature a kick, forgetting who it had formerly been. That was a cruel kick; for, though to appearance but a brown dog, Frolic had the tender feelings of a little girl, and, shrinking home, passed a most unhappy night in a dark corner of the garret, thinking every one might be unkind, now that its good friend, the flute player, had been so. And in the morning, when the grandmother called, “Frolic, Frolic,” it came very slowly down stairs, and did not once go out all day, but lay on the rug, looking very much grieved.