have any faith in nonsense of this sort; still, it is the
fact that I have never been able to prevail upon myself to take that
lifeless thing there to pieces. I am glad I never did, for since
Antonia has been here, I now and then play to her on that fiddle; she
is fond of hearing it--very fond.'

"He exhibited so much emotion as he said this, that I was emboldened to
say 'Ah! dear Mr. Krespel, won't you be so kind as to let me hear you
play on it?' But he made one of his bitter-sweet faces, and answered in
his _cantabile sostenuto_:

"'_Nay_, my dear master student, that would ruin everything;' and I had
to go and admire a number of curiosities, principally childish trash,
till at length he dived into a chest and brought out a folded paper,
which he put into my hand with much solemnity, saying: '_There!_ you
are very fond of music: accept _this_ as a present from me, and always
prize it beyond everything. It is a souvenir of _great_ value.' With
which he took me by the shoulders and gently shoved me out of the door,
with an embrace on the threshold--in short, he symbolically kicked me
out of his house.

"When I opened the paper which he had given me, I found a small piece
of the first string of a violin, about the eighth of an inch in length,
and on the paper was written--

"'Portion of the first string which was on Stamitz's violin when he
played his last Concerto.'

"The calmly insulting style in which I had been shown to the door the
moment I had said a word about Antonia, seemed to indicate that I
should probably never be allowed to see her; however, the second time I
went to Krespel's I found Antonia in his room, helping him to put a
fiddle together. Her exterior did not strike me much at first, but
after a short time one could not resist the charm of her lovely blue
eyes, rosy lips, and exquisitely expressive, tender face. She was very
pale; but when anyone said anything interesting, a bright colour and a
very sweet smile appeared in her face, but the colour quickly died down
to a pale-rose tint. She and I talked quite unconstrainedly and
pleasantly together, and I saw none of those Argus-glances which the
Professor had spoken about. Krespel went on quite in his ordinary,
beaten track, and seemed rather to approve of my being friendly with
Antonia than otherwise. Thus it came about that I went pretty often
there, and our little circle of three got so accustomed to each other's
society that we much enjoyed ou