count for Ericson's request about the violin.

He went to the episcopal church on Sundays, and sat where he could see
Mysie--sat longing and thirsting ever till the music returned. Yet the
music he never heard; he watched only its transmutation into form, never
taking his eyes off Mysie's face. Reflected thence in a metamorphosed
echo, he followed all its changes. Never was one powerless to produce
it more strangely responsive to its influence. She had no voice; she had
never been taught the use of any instrument. A world of musical feeling
was pent up in her, and music raised the suddener storms in her mobile
nature, that she was unable to give that feeling utterance. The waves of
her soul dashed the more wildly against their shores, inasmuch as those
shores were precipitous, and yielded no outlet to the swelling waters.
It was that his soul might hover like a bird of Paradise over the lovely
changes of her countenance, changes more lovely and frequent than those
of an English May, that Ericson persuaded Robert to take his violin.

The last of the sunlight was departing, and a large full moon was
growing through the fog on the horizon. The sky was almost clear of
clouds, and the air was cold and penetrating. Robert drew Eric's plaid
closer over his chest. Eric thanked him lightly, but his voice sounded
eager; and it was with a long hasty stride that he went up the hill
through the gathering of the light frosty mist. He stopped at the stair
upon which Robert had found him that memorable night. They went up. The
door had been left on the latch for their entrance. They went up more
steps between rocky walls. When in after years he read the Purgatorio,
as often as he came to one of its ascents, Robert saw this stair with
his inward eye. At the top of the stair was the garden, still ascending,
and at the top of the garden shone the glow of Mr. Lindsay's parlour
through the red-curtained window. To Robert it shone a refuge for
Ericson from the night air; to Ericson it shone the casket of the
richest jewel of the universe. Well might the ruddy glow stream forth to
meet him! Only in glowing red could such beauty be rightly closed. With
trembling hand he knocked at the door.

They were shown at once into the parlour. Mysie was putting away her
book as they entered, and her back was towards them. When she turned, it
seemed even to Robert as if all the light in the room came only from her
eyes. But that light had been all gather