proverbs, they discarded the one which relates to poverty and
a door and love and a window, and selected for their own guidance that
cheerful saying which sets forth the belief that what is enough for one
is enough for two. Christopher, therefore, bent himself like a man to
earn enough for one, and up to the time of the beginning of this history
had achieved a qualified failure. Barbara believed in his genius, but
so far nobody else did, and the look-out was not altogether cheerful.
Barbara's surname was Allen, but her godfathers and godmothers at her
baptism had been actuated by no reminiscences of ballad poetry, and
she was called Barbara because her godmother was called Barbara and was
ready to present her with a silver caudle-cup on condition that the baby
bore her name. Christopher knew the sweet and quaint old ballad,
and introduced it to his love, who was charmed to discover herself
like-named with a heroine of fiction. She used to sing it to him in
private, and sometimes to her uncle, but it was exclusively a home song.
Christopher made a violin setting of it which Barbara used to accompany
on the pianoforte, a setting in which the poor old song was tortured
into wild cadenzas and dizzy cataracts of caterwauling after the
approved Italian manner.

The days went by, days that were halcyon under love's own sunshine. What
matter if the mere skies were clouded, the mere material sun shut out,
the wind bitter? Love can build a shelter for his votaries, and has
a sun-shine of his own. Still let me sing thy praises, gracious Love,
though I am entering on the days of fogeydom, and my minstrelsy is
something rusty. I remember; I remember. Thou and I have heard the
chimes at midnight, melancholy sweet.

'Barbara,' said Christopher, one evening, bending his mournful brows
above her, 'we must part.'

'Nonsense!' said Barbara smilingly.

'There is no hope of doing anything here,' continued Christopher. 'I
must face the world, and if there is anything in me, I must force the
world to see it and to own it. I am going up to London.'

'To London?' asked Barbara, no longer smiling.

'To London,' said Christopher, quoting Mrs. Browning; 'to the
gathering-place of souls.'

'What shall you do there, Christopher?' asked Barbara, by this time
tremulous.

'I shall take my compositions with me,' he answered,' and offer them
to the publishers. I will find out the people who give concerts and get
leave to play. I will play at f