of old Rosin the
Beau, your friend and true lover. Some day, not far distant now, my
fiddle and I shall be laid away, in the quiet spot you know and love;
and then (for you will miss me, Melody, well I know that!) this writing
will be read to you, and you will hear my voice still, and will learn to
know me better even than you do now; though that is better than any one
else living knows me.

When people ask me where I hail from, our good, neighbourly, down-east
way, I answer "From the Androscoggin;" and that is true enough as far as
it goes, for I have spent many years on and about the banks of that fine
river; but I have told you more than that. You know something of the
little village where I was born and brought up, far to the northeast of
your own home village. You know something, too, of my second mother, as
I call her,--Abby Rock; but of my own sweet mother I have spoken little.
Now you shall hear.

The first thing I can remember is my mother's playing. She was a
Frenchwoman, of remarkable beauty and sweetness. Her given name was
Marie, but I have never known her maiden surname: I doubt if she knew it
herself. She came, quite by accident, being at the time little more than
a child, to the village where my father, Jacques De Arthenay, lived; he
saw her, and loved her at the sight. She consented to marry him, and I
was their only child. My father was a stern, silent man, with but one
bright thing in his life,--his love for my mother. Whenever she came
before his eyes, the sun rose in his face, but for me he had no great
affection; he was incapable of dividing his heart. I have now and then
seen a man with this defect; never a woman.

My first recollection, I said, is of my mother's playing. I see myself,
sitting on a great black book, the family Bible. I must have been very
small, and it was a large Bible, and lay on a table in the sitting-room.
I see my mother standing before me, with her violin on her arm. She is
light, young, and very graceful; beauty seems to flow from her face in a
kind of dark brightness, if I may use such an expression; her eyes are
soft and deep. I have seen no other eyes like my mother Marie's. She
taps the violin with the bow; then she taps me under the chin.

"_Dis 'Bon jour!' petit Jacques!_" and I say "Bo' zour!" as well as I
can, and duck my head, for a bow is expected of me. No bow, no music,
and I am quivering with eagerness for the music. Now she draws the bow
across the string