After exacting a promise that we would accompany their parents on their next monthly visit, we were permitted to depart, and, as the temple gates closed, held in review, with thoughtful silence, the scenes of the day, feeling within us that they were the index of future happiness for our race. Our thoughtful revery was broken by Lindenhoff, the corps’ genealogical curator of sound, who expostulated: “It is strange that the Heracleans still continue to drone the old pæan cadences practiced by the Greeks four thousand years ago, after hearing the Manatitlan operatists; for they are really a wonderful people, and superior musicians, notwithstanding their lack of power for the expression of the deeper emotions of rage, love, and revenge, which are in reality the vitality and soul of our great master’s compositions. They show but little versatility in fugue movement, which expresses the gliding power of musical intelligence; this certainly discovers a material lack of appreciation, however accomplished they may be in other respects. In fact, the Manatitlans would be esteemed as superior vocalists the world over, if they could register a little more volume to their voices. I would much rather undergo one of Mr. Welson’s practical jokes than listen again to the droning of the Heracleans, for their execution was perfectly shocking, and they have far less capacity in the lower scale than the bumble-bee.” The music taster’s criticism provoked a hearty laugh, but the padre, with warmth, exclaimed: “Upon my soul, for the life of me, I can’t see any cause for fault finding with sound, when the words harmonized so well with one’s feelings of grateful sympathy. A good heartfelt invocation from such voices, which were as beautiful as their faces, should not be questioned by our coarse natures! Why, man alive, if I had had the voice of a nightingale, it would have choked with kindly emotions from the harmony of their affectionate solicitations in our behalf! Faugh, man, your opera tral-la-la yells are as empty as the screechings of cockatoos and the croakings of frogs in comparison! The chord of sympathy they touched is beyond the reach of your Norma quirketizations.”