d passed upon Tom in his illness, that Mary saw
it not unreasonable to try upon him now and then a poem of her favorite
singer. Occasionally, of course, the feeling was altogether beyond him,
but even then he would sometimes enter into the literary merit of the
utterance.

"I had no idea there were such gems in George Herbert, Mary!" he said
once. "I declare, some of them are even in their structure finer than
many things that have nothing in them to admire except the structure."

"That is not to be wondered at," replied Mary.

"No," said Joseph; "it is not to be wondered at; for it's clear to me
the old gentleman plied a good bow. I can see that plain enough."

"Tell us how you see it," said Mary, more interested than she would
have liked to show.

"Easily," he answered. "There was one poem"--he pronounced it
_pome_--"you read just now--"

"Which? which?" interrupted Mary, eagerly.

"That I can not tell you; but, all the time you were reading it, I
heard the gentleman--Mr. George Herbert, you call him--playing the tune
to it."

"If you heard him so well," ventured Mary, "you could, I fancy, play
the tune over again to us."

"I think I could," he answered, and, rising, went for his instrument,
which he always brought, and hung on an old nail in the wall the moment
he came in.

He played a few bars of a prelude, as if to get himself into harmony
with the recollection of what he had heard the master play, and then
began a lively melody, in which he seemed as usual to pour out his
soul. Long before he reached the end of it, Mary had reached the poem.

"This is the one you mean, is it not?" she said, as soon as he had
finished--and read it again.

In his turn he did not speak till she had ended.

"That's it, miss," he said then; "I can't mistake it; for, the minute
you began, there was the old gentleman again with his fiddle."

"And you know now what it says, don't you?" asked Mary.

"I heard nothing but the old gentleman," answered the musician.

Mary turned to Tom.

"Would you mind if I tried to show Mr. Jasper what I see in the poem?
He can't get a hold of it himself for the master's violin in his ears;
it won't let him think about it."

"I should like myself to hear what you have got to say about it, Mary!
Go on," said Tom.

Mary had now for a long time been a student of George Herbert; and
anything of a similar life-experience goes infinitely further, to make
one understand another, than any am