e eldest, however, said to Lenz, while her brown eyes sparkled--"You
seem to have a most superior talent for music."

"If my worthy father," said Lenz, "had bought me a violin when I was a
child, so that I might have learned to play on it, I do think that I
might have been a good musician in time, and perhaps done something."

"You have done something," said the stout Doctor, laying his large hand
kindly on Lenz's shoulder.

The Schoolmaster, who was very proud of understanding the internal
mechanism of the instrument, saved Lenz the trouble of explaining it to
the ladies; and, indeed, Lenz could not so well have illustrated how
the delicate shades of _crescendo_ and _decrescendo_ were produced, and
what a quick ear it requires to produce a full tone without depriving
the instrument of sweetness, and to blend the two properly. He
repeatedly asserted that a sense of music and mechanical skill must be
united to complete such a work; and especially pointed out how
admirably Lenz had succeeded in the long drawn mournful tones. Nothing
could be more difficult than to produce feeling and harmony, while
working by the _metronome_; for a musician, playing as his sense of
music dictates, never plays with a _metronome_, and is not therefore
checked in his musical expression. He was on the point of showing how
waltzes were constructed and nailed close together, and that the
outside was made of soft alder wood, while in the inside there were
various kinds of wood, the grain of which was in different directions,
when his explanation was interrupted by hearing Franzl welcoming some
visitors outside, with more than usual eagerness. Lenz went out: it was
the Landlord of the "Lion," with his wife and Annele. The landlord
offered him his hand, and nodded with the consciousness that there was
no more to be said, when so dignified a person did a young man the
honour to survey for a quarter of an hour, a work on which he had
bestowed years of industry.

"So, you are really come at last?" was Lenz's greeting to Annele.

"Why at last?" asked she.

"What! have you forgotten that you promised me to come six weeks ago?"

"When?--I'm sure I don't remember."

"On the very day after my mother died; you said you would come soon."

"Yes, yes!--it must be so--no doubt I did. I felt that there was
something on my conscience, but I did not know what. Now this is it--of
course it is. But, good heavens! in a house like ours, you have no idea
of