ething that places the stamp of popular approval on
one musical enterprise, while another equally artistic and as cleverly
managed languishes in a condition of unendorsed greatness, remains one
of the unsolved mysteries.

When a worker in the vineyard of music or the drama offers his
choicest tokay to the public, that fickle coquette may turn to the
more ordinary and less succulent concord. And the worker and the
public itself know not why.

It is true, Diotti's fame had preceded him, but fame has preceded
others and has not always been proof against financial disaster. All
this preliminary,--and it is but necessary to recall that on the
evening of December the twelfth Diotti made his initial bow in New
York, to an audience that completely filled every available space in
the Academy of Music--a representative audience, distinguished alike
for beauty, wealth and discernment.

When the violinist appeared for his solo, he quietly acknowledged the
cordial reception of the audience, and immediately proceeded with the
business of the evening. At a slight nod from him the conductor rapped
attention, then launched the orchestra into the introduction of the
concerto, Diotti's favorite, selected for the first number. As the
violinist turned to the conductor he faced slightly to the left and in
a direct line with the second proscenium box. His poise was admirable.
He was handsome, with the olive-tinted warmth of his southern
home--fairly tall, straight-limbed and lithe--a picture of poetic
grace. His was the face of a man who trusted without reserve, the
manner of one who believed implicitly, feeling that good was universal
and evil accidental.

As the music grew louder and the orchestra approached the peroration
of the preface of the coming solo, the violinist raised his head
slowly. Suddenly his eyes met the gaze of the solitary occupant of the
second proscenium box. His face flushed. He looked inquiringly, almost
appealingly, at her. She sat immovable and serene, a lace-framed
vision in white.

It was she who, since he had met her, only the night before, held his
very soul in thraldom.

He lifted his bow, tenderly placing it on the strings. Faintly came
the first measures of the theme. The melody, noble, limpid and
beautiful, floated in dreamy sway over the vast auditorium, and seemed
to cast a mystic glamour over the player. As the final note of the
first movement was dying away, the audience, awakening from its
delic