ver I went was decried, avoided, and warned off like a mad dog. It
makes all the blood in my body boil, when I see how everywhere the
scamps get on in the world, and how the honest fellows, who don't use
their elbows, remain behind. You, for instance, if I had my way, should
be driving in a handsome coach with servants at your command, as
beseems the aristocracy of the human race. Instead of that, that
insignificant fellow, Marquard, whom I met below, has his equipage, and
graciously nods as he drives by, after reconnoitering me from top to
toe through his gold spectacles. Death and perdition, who can see such
things and not go wild--"

"Don't abuse our medical counsellor," said Edwin. "In spite of all you
have said he is a good fellow, and his carriage would suit my trade and
Balder's as little as my slow-stepping scientific methods would suit
his empirical gallop. Besides--"

At this moment they heard from the windows below, the first bars of the
overture to Glueck's "Orpheus."

Mohr approached the window again, and listened attentively.

"Who is playing?" he asked after a time, in an undertone.

"One of the inmates of the house, a young lady of whom we know little
more than that she gives music-lessons. Last night--I have not yet told
you of it, Balder--I found her absorbed in Schopenhauer's Parerga. She
spoke enthusiastically about the chapter on 'the sorrows of the world.'

"Her music bears witness that in those sorrows she had had experience,"
said Mohr. "Women only play as she does when their hearts have been
once broken and then pieced together again. It is with them as it is
with old violins, which must be shattered several times before they
have the right resonance. But hush, it is growing still more
beautiful."

He sat down on the window-sill, and, gazing without, became completely
absorbed in listening. Balder worked noiselessly at his little boxes,
while Edwin had taken a book though his gaze became fixed upon one
page. It was so quiet in the room, that during the pauses in the music,
they could hear the stealthy footsteps of the cat, which had just
previously leaped into the chamber, and eaten the remnants of the
breakfast.

CHAPTER VI.

About the same time that these things were occurring in the back
building, the master of the house was in the shop talking with a
customer, who had just brought to be mended a pair of embroidered
slippers, carefully wrapped