lla sat between Frau Dournay and Frau Ceres, while
Fraeulein Perini stood near the piano.

When the first piece came to an end, Bella asked:--

"Fraeulein Dournay, do you ever play accompaniments for your nephew?"

The Aunt answered in the negative. Again the Mother threw a quick look
at Bella, who seemed to be thinking constantly of Eric, and not to be
able, nor indeed to wish, to conceal it. While Fraeulein Dournay was
playing again, Bella said to the mother:--

"You must give me something of yourself; let me have your sister-in-law
at Wolfsgarten."

"I have no right to dispose of my sister. But, pardon me, a word spoken
while she is playing annoys her, though she makes no claim for herself
in any other respect."

Bella was silent, and Frau Dournay also; but while listening to a
refreshing bit of Mozart's music, their thoughts took very different
paths. What Bella's were could hardly be defined; her whole being was
thrilling with joy and pain, renunciation and defiance. The Professorin
owned that her instinctive perceptions were confirmed, though she felt
as if they left a stain upon herself.

When the piece was finished, Bella said:

"Ah, Mozart is a happy being; hard as his life may have been, he was
happy always, and he still makes others happy whenever they listen to
him; even his sorrow and mourning have a certain harmonious serenity.
Did your husband love music too?"

"Oh, yes; he often said that men in modern times express in music that
imaginative romance of the human heart which the ancients wove into
their myths. Music transports us into a world far removed from all
palpable and visible existence, and transports us waking into the land
of dreams."

They went out upon the balcony, and played with the parrots; Bella told
one of them a marvellous story of a cousin at Wolfsgarten, which lived
in a wonderful cage, sometimes flying off into the woods; but it was
too gentlemanly to get its own living there, and always came back to
its golden cage.

Bella's cheeks burned hotter and hotter; her lips trembled, and all at
once it occurred to her that she must settle the matter then. She spoke
to Mother and Aunt so earnestly, and yet with such childlike
entreaties, that they at last agreed that the Aunt should go to her,
within a few days, and remain as her guest.

"You will see," she said, in low but half triumphant tone to the
mother, "Fraeulein Dournay will be Clodwig's best friend; they are
exactly m