rs to the dance all roam,
Then why should I not go?"

"Really," said David; "it's quite infectious"; and jumping up he began
to pirouette, exclaiming, "Then why should I not go!"

"David, this is unseemly," exclaimed Schumann, with mock severity.
"There's another pretty fairy-like piece of yours, Mendelssohn, the
Capriccio in E minor."

"Yes," said Bennett, beginning to touch its opening fanfare of tiny
trumpet-notes; "someone told me a pretty story of this piece, to the
effect that a young lady gave you some flowers, and you undertook,
gallantly, to write the music the Fairies played on the little
trumpet-like blooms."

"Yes," said Mendelssohn, with a smile, "it was in Wales, and I wrote the
piece for Miss Taylor."

"By-the-by," said Schumann, "David's antics remind me that Mendelssohn
can make Witches and other queer creatures, dance, as well as Fairies."

"Villain," exclaimed David, and he began to recite dramatically the
invocation from the "First Walpurgis Night," while Mendelssohn played
the flashing accompaniment.

"Come with flappers,
Fire and clappers;
Hop with hopsticks,
Brooms and mopsticks;
Through the night-gloom lead and follow
In and out each rocky hollow.
Owls and ravens
Howl with us and scare the cravens."

"Ah," said Mendelssohn, "I don't think the old poet would really have
cared for my setting, though he admired my playing, and was always most
friendly to me."

"Yes," said Schumann, warmly; "Goethe liked you because you were
successful, and prosperous. Now Beethoven was poor: therefore Beethoven
must first be loftily patronised and then contemptuously snubbed. I can
never forgive Goethe for that. And as for poor Schubert, well, Goethe
ignored him, and actually thought he had misinterpreted the Erl-king! It
would be comic if it were not painful."

"Poor Schubert!" said Mendelssohn with a sigh; "he met always Fortune's
frown, never her smile."

"Don't you think," said Bennett, "that his genius was the better for his
poverty--that he learned in suffering what he taught in song?"

"No, I do not!" replied Mendelssohn warmly. "That is a vile doctrine
invented by a callous world to excuse its cruelty."

"I believe there's something in it, though," said Bennett.

"There is some truth in it, but not much," answered Mendelssohn, his
eyes flashing as he spoke. "It is true that the artist learns by
suffering, because the artist is more sensitive and feels more de