very anxious to be
chosen, for he wanted the prize very much. He thought how pleased the
mother would be, and he thought how hard she worked to give her little
boy a musical education, and how many comforts the thalers would buy.
Oh, he would work hard for it. The dear mother would be so surprised.
And he fell into a brown study, from which he was awakened by feeling a
pair of strong arms around him, and being frantically whirled around the
room, while a voice shouted in his ear:

"We've got it! We're chosen--you, Gottfried, Johann, old hateful Raoul,
and I!"

The boys worked very hard, for there was only a short time given them.
Franz put his whole soul into his composition, and made himself almost
sick over it. Raoul went about declaring, in his usual contemptuous
manner, that he did not intend to kill himself over it, but secretly he
worked with great industry.

One lovely moonlight night, as he sat by his window composing, for the
moon was so bright he could see very well, he impatiently flung his pen
down and muttered, "There is no use; I can never do it; this will never
do!" and began angrily to tear up one of the music sheets, when suddenly
he stopped and raised his head and listened intently. Such a lovely
melody, so soft and clear, rising and falling in the sweetest cadences,
now growing louder and louder in a wild, passionate crescendo, and then
dying slowly away!

For a moment, the boy remained silent; then, suddenly springing to his
feet, he cried:

"It is Franz! I know it, for no one but he could write anything so
beautiful. But it shall be mine, for it is the piece that will gain the
prize! Ah, Franz, I play before you, and what I play shall be--"

He stopped, and the moonlight streaming in at the window glanced across
the room, and revealed a look of half triumph, half shame on his dark,
haughty face. Why had he stopped? Perhaps his guardian angel stood
behind him, warning him against what he was about to do. For a moment, a
fierce struggle seemed to take possession of the boy, between his good
and his evil spirit. But, alas! the evil conquered, and, sitting down,
he wrote off what he had heard, aided by his wonderful memory; and,
after an hour, he threw down the piece, finished. Then, with an exulting
smile, he cried, "The prize is mine!" and, throwing himself on the bed,
he fell into a troubled sleep.

The time had come at last for the great concert, and the boys were so
excited they could har