es a responsibility."

"I--gifts--what gifts?" I asked, incredulously. "I am as stupid as a
donkey. My sisters always said so, and sisters are sure to know; you may
trust them for that."

"Then you will take the soprano solos?"

"Do you think I can?"

"I don't think you can; I say you must. I will call upon Miss Hallam
this afternoon. And the _gage_--fee--what you call it?--is fifty
thalers."

"What!" I cried, my whole attitude changing to one of greedy
expectation. "Shall I be paid?"

"Why, _natuerlich_," said he, turning over sheets of music, and averting
his face to hide a smile.

"Oh! then I will sing."

"Good! Only please to remember that it is my concert, and I am
responsible for the soloists; and pray think rather more about the
beautiful glittering serpent than about the beautiful glittering
thalers."

"I can think about both," was my unholy, time-serving reply.

Fifty thalers. Untold gold!

CHAPTER XII.

"Prinz Eugen, der edle Ritter."

It was the evening of the haupt-probe, a fine moonlight night in the
middle of May--a month since I had come to Elberthal, and it seemed so
much, so very much more.

To my astonishment--and far from agreeable astonishment--Anna Sartorius
informed me of her intention to accompany me to the probe. I put
objections in her way as well as I knew how, and said I did not think
outsiders were admitted. She laughed, and said:

"That is too funny, that you should instruct me in such things. Why, I
have a ticket for all the proben, as any one can have who chooses to pay
two thalers at the _sasse_. I have a mind to hear this. They say the
orchestra are going to rebel against von Francius. And I am going to the
concert to-morrow, too. One can not hear too much of such fine music;
and when one's friend sings, too--"

"What friend of yours is going to sing?" I inquired, coldly.

"Why, you, you _allerliebster kleiner Engel_," said she, in a tone of
familiarity, to which I strongly objected.

I could say no more against her going, but certainly displayed no
enthusiastic desire for her company.

The probe, we found, was to be in the great saal; it was half lighted,
and there were perhaps some fifty people, holders of probe-tickets,
seated in the parquet.

"You are going to sing well to-night," said von Francius, as he handed
me up the steps--"for my sake and your own, _nicht wahr_?"

"I will try," said, I, looking round the great orchestra, and seeing how
ful