The driven musician reluctantly took the chair before the instrument. He had played on the harmonium in his early days, and knew it was harsh and reedy at the best. But under his gentle touch the spirit of all the harmonies seemed to rise from it, and fill the squalid room. Braunt stood for a moment with fallen jaw, his hands hanging limply by his sides; then he sank into his arm-chair. Jessie gazed steadfastly, with large pathetic eyes, at their guest, who seemed himself transformed, all the lines of dismay and apprehension smoothed away from his face, replaced by an absorbed ecstacy, oblivious to every surrounding. He played harmony after harmony, one apparently suggesting and melting into another, until at last a minor chord carried the music into the solemn rhythm of Chopin’s march; then the organ, like a sentient creature, began to sob and wail for the dead. The girl’s eyes, never moving from the wizard of the keys, filled with unshed tears, and her father buried his face in his hands. When at last the organist’s magic fingers slipped from the keys, and the exultant light faded from his face as the dying music merged into silence, Braunt sprang to his feet. “Curse me for a brutish clown!” he cried. “To think that I mishandled thee, lad, an’ thou playest like an angel. I never heard music before.” He laid his huge hand on the other’s shoulder gently and kindly, although the youth, hardly yet awake from his dream, timidly shrank from the touch. “Forgive me, lad? I misdoubt I hurt thee.” “No, no; it is all nothing. So you like the music?” “The music! I shall never forget it; never. That march rings in my head all day. The whole world seems tramping to it.” The young man for the first time looked up at him, the light of brotherhood in his eyes. “I feel it, too,” he said, “that there is nothing around us but good music. It smooths away the ruder sounds of earth, or uses them as undertones--as--as a background. I sometimes fancy that the gates of heaven are left ajar, and we--a few of us--are allowed to listen, to compensate us for any trouble we have, or to show us the triviality of everything else.” The young man’s thin face flushed in confused shame at finding himself talking thus to another man, although what he said was merely the substance of many a former soliloquy. With a hasty apologetic glance at the girl, who regarded him like one in a trance, with wide unwinking eyes, Langly continued hurriedly: “The march is a difficult one and should not be attempted except after many lessons. I shall be pleased to teach your daughter, if you will let me. She has a correct ear.” Braunt shook his head. “We have no money for music lessons,” he said.