an to
a rich merchant. Money is not the only nor the best thing in
the world, my little lady."

M. Linders apparently saw no danger to Madelon's principles in
these new friendships, or else, perhaps, he was bent on
carrying out his plan of letting her get used to things; at
any rate, he did not interfere with her spending as much time
as she liked with both painter and musician; and every day
through the winter she grew fonder of the society of the old
violinist. He was a lonely man, who lived with his music and
his books, cared little for company, and had few friends; but
he liked to see Madelon flitting about his dusky room,
carrying with her bright suggestions of the youth, and gaiety,
and hopefulness he had almost forgotten. He talked to her,
taught her songs, played to her as much as she liked, and
often gave her and her father orders for the theatre to which
he belonged, where, with delight, she would recognise his
familiar face as he nodded and smiled at her from the
orchestra. He instructed her, too, in music; made her learn
her notes, and practise on the jangling old piano, and even,
at her particular request, to scrape a little on the violin;
but she cared most for singing, and for hearing him play and
talk. She never felt shy or timid with him, and one day, at
the end of a long rhapsody about German music and German
composers, she asked him innocently enough--

"Who was Beethoven, and Mozart, and--and all those others you
talk about? I never heard of them before."

"Never before!" he cried, in a sort of comic amazement and
dismay. "Here is a little girl who has lived half her life in
Germany, who talks German, and yet never heard of Beethoven,
nor of Mozart, nor of--of all those others! Listen, then--they
were some of the greatest men that ever lived."

And, indeed, Madelon heard enough about them after that; for
delighted to have a small, patient listener, to whom he could
rhapsodize as much as he pleased in his native tongue, the
violinist henceforth lost no opportunity of delivering his
little lectures, and would harangue for an hour together, not
only about music and musicians, but about a thousand other
things--a queer, high-flown, rambling jumble, often enough,
which Madelon could not possibly follow nor understand, but to
which she nevertheless liked to listen. A safer teacher she
could hardly have had; she gained much positive information
from him, and when he got altogether beyond her, she r