Diotti, the famous violinist," she said, but she could
not add another word.

As they strolled through the rooms he noticed no less than three
likenesses of the Tuscan. And as they passed her room he saw still
another on the chiffonnier.

"Seems to me the house is running wild with photographs of that
fiddler," he said.

For the first time in her life she was self-conscious: "I will wait for
a more opportune time to tell him," she thought.

In the scheme of Diotti's appearance in New York there were to be two
more concerts. One was to be given that evening. Mildred coaxed her
father to accompany her to hear the violinist. Mr. Wallace was not fond
of music; "it had been knocked out of him on the farm up in Vermont,
when he was a boy," he would apologetically explain, and besides he had
the old puritanical abhorrence of stage people--putting them all in one
class--as puppets who danced for played or talked for an idle and
unthinking public.

So it was with the thought of a wasted evening that he accompanied
Mildred to the concert.

The entertainment was a repetition of the others Diotti had given, and
at its end, Mildred said to her father: "Come, I want to congratulate
Signor Diotti in person."

"That is entirely unnecessary," he replied.

"It is my desire," and the girl led the unwilling parent back of the
scenes and into Diotti's dressing-room.

Mildred introduced Diotti to her father, who after a few commonplaces
lapsed into silence. The daughter's enthusiastic interest in Diotti's
performance and her tender solicitude for his weariness after the
efforts of the evening, quickly attracted the attention of Mr. Wallace
and irritated him exceedingly.

When father and daughter were seated in their carriage and were
hurriedly driving home, he said: "Mildred, I prefer that you have as
little to say to that man as possible."

"What do you object to in him?" she asked.

"Everything. Of what use is a man who dawdles away his time on a
fiddle; of what benefit is he to mankind? Do fiddlers build cities? Do
they delve into the earth for precious metals? Do they sow the seed and
harvest the grain? No, no; they are drones--the barnacles of society."

"Father, how can you advance such an argument? Music's votaries offer
no apologies for their art. The husbandman places the grain within the
breast of Mother Earth for man's material welfare; God places music in
the heart of man for his spiritual development. In man's