d as the
cream of all the candidates. Each had displayed marked talent for the
violin. Had it been otherwise they would not have been in the
Conservatory.

All were like Camilla, quite poor. Some were even supported by pensions
from their native towns, and nearly all of them afterwards became good
players. There was Lacham, Leon Regnier, and Isidor Lotto who afterwards
became so famous, and several others.

Henri Wieniawski was in the class before Camilla, but at the time was
still about the school. They often met and there began a friendship that
has continued to this day. Of Massart's pupils, three, Camilla, Lotto
and Wieniawski have become famous the world over and are among the great
artists now living.

Besides her regular studies Massart advised Camilla to join a quartette
in order to perfect herself in reading music at sight. Once a week she
spent an hour or two in playing with three others at the Conservatory
and in this way heard much fine music and accustomed her young eyes to
read the notes quickly and taught her slender fingers to interpret the
music at command.

Not all of her days were happy. Massart was dreadfully cross at times.
He would detect the slightest flaw in the work. Once he marched a stupid
boy out of the room by the ear and told him never to come back again. If
she should be treated like that it would really break her heart. She
would try her best to attend to all that was said and to do everything
just right. Massart might storm and rage about the room, but it should
not be from any neglect on her part. Altogether it was not a very lovely
life. Try as hard as she could it did not always please, and some days
it was really pretty tough for such a very small girl.

Another trouble came. Mother would bend over that dreadful embroidery
all day long, and things did not seem so prosperous as in Nantes. Father
was busy looking about for new rooms and almost before Camilla was aware
of it they were ready for a change of residence.

They could not afford the rent of the rooms on the Rue St. Nicholas
d'Antin, and they found cheaper quarters in a flat just under the roof
in an old house on the Rue Lamartine, and up six flights of long, dark
stairs.

It was a sad change from their comfortable home in sunny Nantes. There
was nothing to be seen out of the windows save steep, red roofs, the
sky, and sundry wild cats that roamed over the tiles. The streets
thereabouts were narrow and crooked, with m