Through an open window not far away came the sound of music--somebody was playing the piano. Music heard from another house is supposed to be a torture, and so (like the cat) has its place among the accepted jokes. But, because to-night I was to have the luck--who invented chicken-pox?--it was not distressing and funny. It was fine music played by an artist on a good instrument. It had the quality of the night, wistful and desiderious. Long ago and in a far country there was a king who suffered from a restless melancholy, or a bad temper, or something of that kind, and somebody made music for him. "So Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him." Surely, that nocturne was meant to be heard as I heard it--in a garden at night. Alas, these concerts, with their awful too-muchness, and professional smirks, and roars of ugly applause! I do not like to have music thus administered. But for the music that visited my garden that night I had the most grateful welcome. When the chance things are charming they far surpass the calculated, and love itself may be no more than a delightful accident. It was just by chance that somebody in a lighted room, without a thought of audience, went to the piano and remembered that music. Chance makes things grow on old stone walls; and in the rich man's rock-garden, wealth, skill, and calculation try to imitate the charm. The music ceased, and my gratitude must remain unspoken--unless, by a chance that were wellnigh miraculous, this page may carry it. But artists--be they makers of music or pictures, poems or stories--must not think too much of gratitude; for they will not always get it, and they will not always deserve it. That king of old once flung a javelin at the musician who played before him. Some lazy souls can never do their uttermost unless they are thrashed up to it. A moderate amount of javelin--avoiding vital parts--is not always bad for the artist. My garden, they tell me, was once the garden of an old priory. Under one corner of the lawn is the well that provided the religious with water. It has been covered in with stone, and just over the stone the grass refuses to grow. It is like a tonsure. But though I have been in my garden I think at every hour of the night and of the early morning, I have met no shadowy figures counting their beads or reading their little illuminated books. These good people sleep long and quietly. Let me tell you the story of THE GHOSTLY MUSIC There was once a master of music, who, from the charity of his heart and from his love of excellence, took as his pupil without reward a young boy that was greatly gifted. And in time it came to pass that the pupil reached his zenith and the powers of the master had begun to decline, so that it was said by some that the pupil now surpassed the master. And the hints of this that came to the master's ears were to him bitter as wormwood.