and give many concerts and secure much fame, but why should I go, I ask him, when I am happy here? So many people know what should make one happy a thousand times better than the happy one knows. Life,” he said again, “is very strange.”

It was a long time before he spoke again. “I have had mine fame,” he said. “I have played to great houses both here and abroad, and women have thrown red roses at me and mine violin. There has been much in the papers, and I have had many large sums, which, of course, I have always given to the poor. One should use one’s art to do good with and not to become rich. I have mine house, mine clothes, all that is good for me to eat, mine sister and mine—” he hesitated [Pg 76]for an instant, and Lynn knew he was thinking of the Cremona. “Mine violins,” he concluded, “mine little shop where I make them, and best of all, mine dreams.”

[Pg 76]

Iris came back and Fräulein Fredrika followed her. “If you will give me all the little shells,” she was saying, “I will stick them together with glue and make mineself one little house to sit on the parlour table. It will be most kind.” Her voice was caressing and her face fairly shone with joy.

“I will light the lamp,” she went on. “It is dark here now.” Suiting the action to the word, she pulled down the lamp that hung by heavy chains in the centre of the room, and the gilded potato-masher swung back and forth violently.

“No, no, Fredrika,” said the Master. “It is not a necessity to light the lamp.”

“Herr Irving,” she began, “would you not like the lamp to see by?”

“Not at all,” answered Lynn. “I like the twilight best.”

“Come, Fräulein,” said Iris, “sit over here by me. Did I tell you how you could make a little clothes-brush out of braided rope and a bit of blue ribbon?”

[Pg 77]

[Pg 77]

“No,” returned the Fräulein, excitedly, “you did not. It will be most kind if you will do it now.”

The women talked in low tones and the others were silent without listening. The street was in shadow, and here and there lanterns flashed in the dark. Down in the valley, velvety night was laid over the river and the willows that grew along its margin, but the last light lingered on the blue hills above, and a single star had set 

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