Happy or wretched, however, let them form a frame, as it were, for the picture I would conjure up for my reader. The first note drawn forth by the Don had arrested their attention, and there was a rush for every spot from which a view could be had of the performer. See them, therefore, a few of the older ones just inside the door, the less fortunate craning their necks behind, and upon their faces that rapt attention which is an inspiration to an artist. See those others who, huddled upon boxes and barrels piled beneath the windows, are flattening their noses, one might almost say, against the lower panes. At the library door stood one or two tidy house-maids. Uncle Dick, alone, stood near the roaring fire, he assuming that his services were required. “Hi! what dat?” exclaimed a youngster, when the strange sound first broke upon his ear; for he could not see the Don from where he stood. “Heish, boy!” broke in a senior, in stern rebuke; “Don’t you see ’tis de new gent’mun a-playin’ on the fiddle?” And silence reigned again,—a silence broken, from time to time, by a low, rippling chuckle of intense delight, and illumined, one might say, by the whites of an hundred pairs of wondering eyes. And now let us glance at the dozen gentlemen who sat within, beginning with my dear old grandfather. At the first long-drawn, sonorous note he had sprung to his feet; and there he stood, with both hands raised and extended as though he commanded silence. And his countenance! never had I seen it look so beautiful! A happy smile lit up his noble face, and he seemed to say as he looked from Charley to me, and from me to Charley, “At last!” And Charley stood leaning against a corner of the mantel-piece, with his arms folded, replying to his friend with sympathetic glances. It was plain to see that he was happy in his old friend’s happiness, but there was a droll twinkle in his eyes that even he could not suppress, though he bit his lip. What it meant I could not, of course, divine. It was a treat to behold the Herr on this occasion. With his forearm resting on the table, his fingers toying with the stem of his goblet, he leaned back in his chair and smiled, through his gold-rimmed spectacles, with a look of profound Germanic content and good nature. Not once did he remove his benignant eyes from the Don, not even when he raised his half-full glass to his lips and drained it to the last drop. Even then he watched, out of the corner of his eye, the fantastic caperings of the bow and the labyrinthine wanderings of the performer’s fingers; and slowly replacing his glass upon the table, stroked his long and straggling beard so softly that he seemed to fear that the sparse hairs would mar the music by their rattling. One word will suffice for the jolly, fat, middle-aged gentleman. He sat with his mouth wide open, tilting back in one of my grandfather’s skeleton chairs. Now, that was not safe.