Zara and Prince Ivan

"I trill'd the notes, and curb'd them to a sigh, And when they falter'd most, I made them leap Fierce from my bow, as from a summer sleep A young she-devil. I was fired thereby To bolder efforts--and a muffled cry Came from the strings as if a saint did weep.

"I changed the theme. I dallied with the bow Just time enough to fit it to a mesh Of merry tones, and drew it back afresh, To talk of truth, and constancy, and woe, And life, and love, and madness, and the glow Of mine own soul which burns into my flesh."

All my love for music welled freshly up in my heart; I, who had felt disinclined to touch the piano for months, now longed to try my strength again upon the familiar and responsive key-board. For a piano has never been a mere piano to me; it is a friend who answers to my thought, and whose notes meet my fingers with caressing readiness and obedience.

Breakfast came, and I took it with great relish. Then, to pass the day, I went out and called on Mrs. Everard's friends, Mr. and Mrs. Challoner and their daughters. I found them very agreeable, with that easy bonhomie and lack of stiffness that distinguishes the best Americans. Finding out through Mrs. Everard's letter that I was an "artiste" they at once concluded I must need support and patronage, and with impulsive large-heartedness were beginning to plan as to the best means of organizing a concert for me. I was taken by surprise at this, for I had generally found the exact reverse of this sympathy among English patrons of art, who were never tired of murmuring the usual platitudes about there being "so many musicians," "music was overdone," "improvising was not understood or cared for," etc., etc.