Surprise, mingled with an oppressive sorrow, held us speechless; for words of sympathy, however pure in expression, would have added to the pangs of her agonized affection, which seemed already struggling for liberation from the body, held back by her children’s love; but divided, and bereaved of the sentient unity of her affection, grief overshadowed and dimmed her assurance of a happy immortality. A silence of many minutes followed, unbroken save by convulsed sobs, which she vainly tried to suppress; at last a flood from the fount of tears enabled her to regain self-command, but only to be borne back for the realization of deeper woe. Her children, with anxious solicitation for the revival of fond memories, had caught the reflection of their mother’s lullaby, with which she had soothed them in dawning infancy, when with undimmed eyes she had breathed her affection in song. Then no cloud had arisen to darken with its gloom the joys of her wedded life. The daughter had been encouraged, with guided hands, to touch the strings of the harp during the period of toddling babyhood, when from feeble, faltering incertitude an answering response came to the mother’s leading song. Soon her tiny fingers, instructed by a retentive memory, enabled her to render with remarkable accuracy the most difficult compositions within the compass of her reach. The sadly harmonious memorial that had opened with renewed anguish the fount of the mother’s tears, was the sleep requiem early impressed on the daughter’s dawning memory. Commencing with an imitative prelude, suggestive of childhood’s hesitating touch, accompanied with her brother’s violin, the various canzanatas were modulated with the far-off lisp of invocation, as if from dawning perception, intuitively increasing in volume until it reached the flowing harmony of present maturity. From the joyous expression of childhood’s buoyancy, the strain suddenly changed into the sad wailing of uncertainty, improvised with mournful variations descriptive of their wanderings and disappointments. Again, in renewal, as if led by some inspiration beyond their control, they reached their present source of sorrow. The burden of the plaintive strains was frequently interrupted with sobbing outbursts, rendering their touch tremulous and uncertain, the efforts made for suppression being easily detected by hesitations, which they endeavored to cover with bolder movements. Recovering, as if with the sudden impression of hopeful assurance, there came a stream of melody of inconceivable purity, as from an echo of futurity bearing in waft joyful gladness. This change caused the mother to whisper, with tears fresh flowing over a sadly joyous expression, “I would have so, it is our requiem.”