tly upon my inner sense of hearing like drops of
summer rain on a thirsty soil. I was just aware that I was threading
the labyrinth of a minor key, and that the result was a network of
delicate and tender melody reminding me of Heinrich Heine's words:

"Lady, did you not hear the nightingale sing? A beautiful silken
voice--a web of happy notes--and my soul was taken in its meshes, and
strangled and tortured thereby."

A few minutes, and the inner voice that conversed with me so sweetly,
died away into silence, and at the same time my fingers found their way
to the closing chord. As one awaking from a dream, I looked up. The
little group of friendly listeners were rapt in the deepest attention;
and when I ceased, a murmur of admiration broke from them all, while
Zara's eyes glistened with sympathetic tears.

"How can you do it?" asked Mrs. Challoner in good-natured amazement.
"It seems to me impossible to compose like that while seated at the
piano, and without taking previous thought!"

"It is not MY doing," I began; "it seems to come to me from--"

But I was checked by a look from Zara, that gently warned me not to
hastily betray the secret of my spiritual communion with the unseen
sources of harmony. So I smiled and said no more. Inwardly I was full
of a great rejoicing, for I knew that however well I had played in past
days, it was nothing compared to the vigour and ease which were now
given to me--a sort of unlocking of the storehouse of music, with
freedom to take my choice of all its vast treasures.

"Well, it's what WE call inspiration," said Mr. Challoner, giving my
hand a friendly grasp; "and wherever it comes from, it must be a great
happiness to yourself as well as to others."

"It is," I answered earnestly. "I believe few are so perfectly happy in
music as I am."

Mrs. Everard looked thoughtful.

"No amount of practice could make ME play like that," she said; "yet I
have had two or three masters who were supposed to be first-rate. One
of them was a German, who used to clutch his hair like a walking
tragedian whenever I played a wrong note. I believe he got up his
reputation entirely by that clutch, for he often played wrong notes
himself without minding it. But just because he worked himself into a
sort of frenzy when others went wrong, everybody praised him, and said
he had such an ear and was so sensitive that he must be a great
musician. He worried me nearly to death over Bach's 'Well-tempered