tting rocking in a chair, as she so often used to do in my
childhood days, looking into the fire and singing softly to herself. I
nestled close to her, and, with her arms round me, she haltingly told
me who my father was--a great man, a fine gentleman--he loved me and
loved her very much; he was going to make a great man of me: All she
said was so limited by reserve and so colored by her feelings that it
was but half truth; and so I did not yet fully understand.

III

Perhaps I ought not pass on in this narrative without mentioning that
the duet was a great success, so great that we were obliged to respond
with two encores. It seemed to me that life could hold no greater joy
than it contained when I took her hand and we stepped down to the
front of the stage bowing to our enthusiastic audience. When we
reached the little dressing-room, where the other performers were
applauding as wildly as the audience, she impulsively threw both her
arms round me and kissed me, while I struggled to get away.

One day a couple of weeks after my father had been to see us, a wagon
drove up to our cottage loaded with a big box. I was about to tell the
men on the wagon that they had made a mistake, when my mother, acting
darkly wise, told them to bring their load in; she had them unpack the
box, and quickly there was evolved from the boards, paper, and other
packing material a beautiful, brand-new, upright piano. Then she
informed me that it was a present to me from my father. I at once sat
down and ran my fingers over the keys; the full, mellow tone of the
instrument was ravishing. I thought, almost remorsefully, of how I
had left my father; but, even so, there momentarily crossed my mind
a feeling of disappointment that the piano was not a grand. The new
instrument greatly increased the pleasure of my hours of study and
practice at home.

Shortly after this I was made a member of the boys' choir, it being
found that I possessed a clear, strong soprano voice. I enjoyed the
singing very much. About a year later I began the study of the pipe
organ and the theory of music; and before I finished the grammar
school, I had written out several simple preludes for organ which won
the admiration of my teacher, and which he did me the honor to play at
services.

The older I grew, the more thought I gave to the question of my
mother's and my position, and what was our exact relation to the world
in general. My idea of the whole matter