ave. If
one sorrow is in your heart, if you have learned the beauty and the
nobility of it, you can teach others the same thing. You can show them
how to rise above it, like the tree that had one long lifetime of hurt,
and ended in mine Cremona to help all who hear. The one who plays the
instrument must be made in the same way, of the same influences--the
cutting, the night, and the cold. Of softness nothing good ever comes,
for one must always fight.

"Nothing in this whole world is free but the sun and the fresh air and
the water to drink. We must pay the fair price for all else. I have had
mine fame and I have paid mine price, but the heights are lonely, and
sometimes I think it would be better to walk in the valley with a
woman's hand in mine. But at the first, before I knew, I chose. I said:
'I will be an artist,' and so I am, but I have paid, oh, mine son, I
have paid and I am still paying! There is no end!"

The Master's face was grey and haggard, but his eyes burned. Lynn saw
what it had cost him to open this secret chamber--to lay bare this old
wound. "And I," he said huskily, "I touched the Cremona!"

"Yes," said the Master, sadly, "on that first day, you lifted up mine
Cremona, and until to-day I have never forgiven. There has been
resentment in mine old heart for you, though I have tried to put it
aside. Her hands were last upon it--hers and mine. When I touched it, it
was the place where her white fingers rested, where many a time I put
mine kiss to ease mine heart. And you, you took that away from me!"

"If I had only known," murmured Lynn.

"But you did not know," said the Master, kindly; "and to-day I have
forgiven."

"Thank you," returned Lynn, with a lump in his throat; "it is much to
give."

"Sometimes," sighed the Master, "when I have been discouraged, I have
been very hungry for someone to understand me--someone to laugh, to
touch mine tired eyes, to make me forget with her little sweet ways. In
mine fancy, I have seen it all, and more.

"When I have gone down the hill to the post-office, where there has
never been the letter from her, and the little children have run to me,
holding out their arms that I should take them up, I have felt that the
price was too high that I have paid. But all the time I have understood
that on the heights one must go alone, for a time at least, with the
thunders and the lightnings and the storms. If I had been given one son,
I think he would have been like yo