While M. Hollydorf was soothing the wounded enthusiasm of Correliana’s affection, the instinctively sensitive curators passed the case, with its instrument, from one to the other, with an expression, kindred in acting translation, to the effect likely to be produced upon two civilized or savage bachelors in the armed disposal of an infant which had been subjected to their inspection, for commendation, by a fond mother. Finding that their former criticisms of Heraclean music had placed them in a dilemma that required vindication, they questioned each other’s ability for extrication. Pettynose having used an accordion in boyhood as a dernier Alma Mater for the nursing of his musical faculties, offered in acknowledgment of his debt of gratitude, with manifest reluctance, the tribute of his experience in expiation of his long neglect and indifference to the rudimentary ties of affection. With the first out-breathings of the foundling, as his fingers deftly caressed with familiar touch the well known features, he became conscious that the ties of relationship had been rendered harmonious by a foreign marriage. Reassured by this discovery the petulant asperities of his face vanished; then after a short wandering prelude for thoughtful familiarization, he lapsed into a musical reverie of the past, that gradually caused his disembodiment from the petty assumptions of instinct, leaving his natural spirit of goodness to soar in flight upon the wings of sympathy. In a few moments he became lost to material impressions, other than from the imposed invocation of his fingers, causing the colonnades and courts to become tremulous with the lulling concord of sweet sounds. Correliana with hands reverentially folded over her breast leaned against a vine-wreathed pillar, regarding his face and fingers with her large luminous eyes overshadowed with a misty veil of thoughtful inspiration, as if in search for the mazy source of the mysterious influence that held her entranced within the spell of inwrought concord. But the motor spirit of memory in reviving vision bore upon its talismanic wings the artist far away from self to roam among scenes bright with the revels of childhood in the land of his birth, on the banks of the swift flowing Amaril, whose cascades embowered by the tropical hill groves of Brazil had inspired with the rippling flow of their echoes his love for music. The reveried air of “Home, sweet home” surprised his listeners with a responsive echo, that held them immovable in hushed silence, with a controlling power that banished self. Even the harsh discordant screams of the parrots, calling for the vesper notice of their mistress, were hushed, as if suddenly made aware of their voiced defects; while birds with voices attuned to song in cadenced time swayed silently listening upon their sprayed perches, eying askance as if in search of the new songster from whom the sweet notes came. As minutes unheeded winged their way into the current