My grandfather, when a young man, spent several years in Europe. He was an enthusiast in every fibre, and one of his enthusiasms was music. Very naturally, therefore, he took lessons while abroad,—lessons on the violin, the piano being held, in Virginia, an instrument fit only for women and foreigners. But, undertaking the violin for the first time when he was a grown man, he never acquired, ardently as he practised, anything like a mastery over that difficult instrument. At any rate, returning to Virginia and finding himself no longer in an artist-atmosphere, his ardor gradually cooled, so that until about ten or twelve years before the period of my story, all I can remember of my grandfather’s musical performances is his occasional fiddling for me and such of my young school-mates as chanced to visit me. During the Christmas holidays, especially, when Elmington was always crowded with young people, it was an understood thing that Uncle Tom, as most of his neighbors’ children delighted to call him, was to be asked to play. Christmas Eve, notably, was no more Christmas Eve, at Elmington, without certain jigs and reels executed by “Uncle Tom,” than without two enormous bowls—one of eggnog, the other of apple-toddy—concocted by him with his own hands. The thing had grown into an institution, more and more fixed as the years went by. On such occasions, immediately after the old gentleman had taken his second glass of eggnog,—not before,—it was in order to call for his annual exhibition of virtuosity; whereupon Charley—no one else could be trusted to bear the precious burden—was despatched to my grandfather’s chamber, where, upon a special shelf in a closet, lay, from Christmas to Christmas, a certain old violin, which rarely saw the light at any other time. But, about a dozen years before the events I am now describing, there came a German musician—Wolffgang Amadeus Waldteufel chanced to be his name—and established himself at Leicester Court-House as a piano teacher,—or, rather, he gave lessons on any and all instruments, as will be the case in the country. Herr Waldteufel was an excellent pianist, and, in fact, a thorough musician. Strangers from the cities, when they heard him play at Elmington, were always surprised to find so brilliant a performer in the country, and used to wonder why he should thus hide his light under a bushel. But the truth is, a man generally finds his place in the world, and Herr Waldteufel was no exception. In the frequent hinges of his elbow was to be found the explanation of his losing his patronage, in city after city; so that it was natural enough that he found himself, at last, giving lessons in a village, and in the houses of the neighboring gentry, upon piano, fiddle, flute, guitar, and, shades of Sebastian Bach! must I even add—the banjo?