ed his hurdy-gurdy beneath the arched window. The pleasant face of
Phoebe--and doubtless, too, the liberal recompense which she had flung
him--still dwelt in his remembrance. His expressive features kindled
up, as he recognized the spot where this trifling incident of his
erratic life had chanced. He entered the neglected yard (now wilder
than ever, with its growth of hog-weed and burdock), stationed himself
on the doorstep of the main entrance, and, opening his show-box, began
to play. Each individual of the automatic community forthwith set to
work, according to his or her proper vocation: the monkey, taking off
his Highland bonnet, bowed and scraped to the by-standers most
obsequiously, with ever an observant eye to pick up a stray cent; and
the young foreigner himself, as he turned the crank of his machine,
glanced upward to the arched window, expectant of a presence that would
make his music the livelier and sweeter. The throng of children stood
near; some on the sidewalk; some within the yard; two or three
establishing themselves on the very door-step; and one squatting on the
threshold. Meanwhile, the locust kept singing in the great old
Pyncheon Elm.

"I don't hear anybody in the house," said one of the children to
another. "The monkey won't pick up anything here."

"There is somebody at home," affirmed the urchin on the threshold. "I
heard a step!"

Still the young Italian's eye turned sidelong upward; and it really
seemed as if the touch of genuine, though slight and almost playful,
emotion communicated a juicier sweetness to the dry, mechanical process
of his minstrelsy. These wanderers are readily responsive to any
natural kindness--be it no more than a smile, or a word itself not
understood, but only a warmth in it--which befalls them on the roadside
of life. They remember these things, because they are the little
enchantments which, for the instant,--for the space that reflects a
landscape in a soap-bubble,--build up a home about them. Therefore,
the Italian boy would not be discouraged by the heavy silence with
which the old house seemed resolute to clog the vivacity of his
instrument. He persisted in his melodious appeals; he still looked
upward, trusting that his dark, alien countenance would soon be
brightened by Phoebe's sunny aspect. Neither could he be willing to
depart without again beholding Clifford, whose sensibility, like
Phoebe's smile, had talked a kind of heart's language to