splendidly!' Often she would say to him, 'I should like to sing something, father'; and then he would take the fiddle from the wall, and play all her favourite solos, those which she used to sing of old,--and then she was quite happy. "A short time before I came back, Krespel one night thought he heard some one playing on the piano in the next room, and presently he recognized that it was B----, preluding in his accustomed rather peculiar fashion. He tried to rise from his bed, but some strange heavy weight seemed to lie upon him, fettering him there, so that he could not move. Presently he heard Antonia singing to the piano, in soft whispering tones, which gradually swelled, and swelled to the most pealing _fortissimo_. Then those marvellous tones took the form of a beautiful, glorious _aria_ which B---- had once written for Antonia, in the religious style of the old masters. Krespel said the state in which he found himself was indescribable, for terrible alarm was in it, and also a bliss such as he had never before known. Suddenly he found himself in the middle of a flood of the most brilliant and dazzling light, and in this light he saw B---- and Antonia holding each other closely embraced, and looking at each other in a rapture of bliss. The tones of the singing and of the accompanying piano went on, although Antonia was not seen to be singing, and B---- was not touching the piano. Here Krespel fell into a species of profound unconsciousness, in which the vision and the music faded and were lost. When he recovered, all that remained was a sense of anxiety and alarm. He hastened into Antonia's room. "She was lying on the couch, with her eyes, closed, and a heavenly smile on her face, as if she were dreaming of the most exquisite happiness and bliss. But she was dead!" Whilst Theodore had been telling this tale, Ottmar had been manifesting his impatience nay, his lively repugnance in various ways. Sometimes he would get up and walk about the room, then he would sit down again, and drink glass after glass of the contents of the vase; then he sat down at Theodore's table, and pulled the papers about, till he found an almanac, of which he eagerly turned over the leaves for a time, till at length he laid it down before him, open on the table, with the air of having discovered something in it of the deepest interest and importance.