enings of the morning.

"And don't you see what it means? I can begin to study at _once_! Right
this minute! And, _oh_, how I'll work and practice and learn until--"

She caught up the old man's violin and its bow and drew it across the
strings.

"Play!" commanded Jacques Henri, without so much as a word for the
Aladdin-lamp tale she had told him.

Beryl played and as she played she wished with all her might she could
summon the power that had been hers on Christmas night. She wanted to
play for Jacques Henri as she had played then. But she could not.

"Stop!"

Beryl laid the violin down.

The old man scowled at her until she shifted nervously under his
searching eyes.

"Your fingers--they are clever, your ear is true--but there is
nothing--of _you_--in what you play! Do you know what I mean?"

He did not wait for Beryl to answer; he went on, with a shake of his
great head and his eyes still fixed upon her.

"You come to me and tell me your good fortune and what you will do; how
_you_ can study and _you_ can work and _you_ can learn to make good
music--and you have no word for what that money will mean to your saint
of a mother--aye, the best woman God ever made! Shame to you, selfish
girl, that you should put your ambition before her dreams!"

The color dyed Beryl's face. "I never thought--" she muttered, then
stopped abruptly, ashamed of her own admission.

"No, you never thought! Do you ever think much beyond yourself?" Then,
afraid that he had spoken too harshly, he laid his hand affectionately
upon Beryl's shoulder. "But you are young, my dear, and youth is
careless. Jacques Henri knows that there is good in you--my eyes are
wise and I can see into your heart. It is an honest little heart--you
will heed in time. Ambition is a greedy thing--watch out that you keep
it in your clever head and do not let it wrap its hard sinews about your
heart, crushing all that is beautiful there. Listen to me, child; think
you that your music can reach into the souls of people if you do not
feel that music in your own good soul? Your fingers may be clever and
your body strong, but your music will be cold, cold, if the heart inside
you is a little, cold, mean thing! Many's the one, I grant you, content
to feed the passing plaudits of the crowd, but not the master--he must
go further, he must give of himself to all that they may carry something
beautiful of his gift away in their hearts. _That_ is the master. _That_
is