g before he spoke; and when he said a thing must
be done, people were apt to do it. He was now thirty years old,
without kith or kin that any one knew of; living by himself in a good
house, and keeping it clean and decent, almost as a woman might; not
likely ever to change his condition, it was supposed.

This was the man who happened to come into the street on some errand,
that soft summer evening, at the very moment when Marie was feeling
lifted up by the light of joy in the children's faces, and was telling
herself how good it was that she had come this way. Hearing the sound
of the fiddle, De Arthenay stopped for a moment, and his face grew dark
as night. He was a religious man, as sternly so as his Huguenot
ancestor, but wearing his religion with a difference. He knew all
music, except psalm-tunes, to be directly from the devil. Even as to
the psalm-tunes themselves, it seemed to him a dreadful thing that
worship could not be conducted without this compromise with evil, this
snare to catch the ear; and he harboured in the depth of his soul
thoughts about the probable frivolity of David, which he hardly voiced
even to himself. The fiddle, in particular, he held to be positively
devilish, both in its origin and influence; those who played this
unholy instrument were bound to no good place, and were sure to gain
their port, in his opinion. Being thus minded, it was with a shock of
horror that he heard the sound of a fiddle in the street of his own
village, not fifty yards from the meeting-house itself. After a
moment's pause, he came wrathfully down the street; his height raised
him a head and shoulders above the people who were ringed around the
little musician, and he looked over their heads, with his arm raised to
command, and his lips opened to forbid the shameful thing. Then--he
saw Marie's face; and straightway his arm dropped to his side, and he
stood without speaking. The children looked up at him, and moved away,
for they were always afraid of him, and at this moment his face was
dreadful to see.

Yet it was nothing dreadful that he looked upon. Marie was standing
with her head bent down over her violin, in a pretty way she had. A
light, slight figure, not short, yet with a look that spoke all of
youth and morning grace. She wore a little blue gown, patched and
faded, and dusty enough after her day's walk; her feet were dusty too,
but slender and delicately shaped. Her face was like nothing tha