h the clash
of a martial movement, strong and steady, which carried the listener
onward till he was, with the sound, lost in the far distance. Then, in
wailing minor numbers the music returned, slowly working itself up into
the tumult and fury of a pent-up agony, and finally sweeping all before
it in a wild hurricane of bitterness. Then a pause, and then sweetly
and in the far distance once more rose the quiet hymn, and after that
all was silence.

After the first few notes the organist had uttered a startled
ejaculation, and drawn the doctor to another seat farther down the nave,
where, till all was over, he sat motionless as a statue. But the moment
the music had ceased he ran up the stairs with a face full of pleasure
and admiration, and actually seized George by the hand.

"You're a genius, sir. That was not at all bad, I can tell you."

A happy smile was all the answer George could give.

"Not at all bad," repeated the organist. "I was telling your friend,"
added he to Dr Wilkins, who had returned more slowly to the organ,
"that was not at all bad. He must come here often."

"Nothing, I am sure, would delight him more," said the doctor. "Eh, my
boy?"

"Nothing, indeed," said George, "but--"

"But your reading, I suppose."

"Never mind your reading, sir!" exclaimed the organist. "What's that to
music? Take my advice, and go in for music."

Poor George! for a moment he felt tempted to abandon all his ambitions
and resolutions at the prospect of a career so delightful and congenial.

But he was made of firmer stuff than Tom Drift, and replied,--

"I cannot do that, sir; but if I may come now and then--"

"Come whenever you like," said the organist; and so saying he shook
George and his friend by the hand, and hurried from the chapel.

This was the event which of all others brightened George Reader's first
year at college.

Instead of aimless walks, he now stole at every spare moment (without
cutting into his ordinary work) to the organ, and there revelled in
music.

His acquaintance with the college organist increased and developed into
a friendship, of which mutual admiration formed a large element, and one
happy Sunday, a year after his arrival at Cambridge, he received, for
the first time, the much coveted permission to preside at the organ
during a college service, a task of which he acquitted himself so well--
nay, so remarkably well--that not only did he frequently find himself
again