wn estimation at any rate. Our late first violinist, who
had recently died, had been on visiting terms with persons of the
highest respectability, had given lessons to the very best families, and
might have been seen bowing to young ladies and important dowagers
almost any day. No wonder his successor was speculated about with some
curiosity.

"_Alle Wetter!_" cried Karl Linders, impatiently--that young man was
much given to impatience--"what does von Francius want? He can't have
everything. I suppose this new fellow plays a little too well for his
taste. He will have to give him a solo now and then instead of keeping
them all for himself."

"_Weiss 's nit_," said another, shrugging his shoulders, "I've only
heard that von Francius had a row with the Direction, and was outvoted."

"What a sweet temper he will be in at the probe to-morrow!" laughed
Karl. "Won't he give it to the _Maedchen_ right and left!"

"What time is he coming?" proceeded one of the oboists.

"Don't know; know nothing about it; perhaps he'll appear in 'Tannhauser'
to-night. Look out, Friedhelm."

"Here comes little Luischen," said Karl, with a winning smile, a
straightening of his collar, and a general arming-for-conquest
expression, as some of the "ladies of the chorus and ballet," appeared
from the side door. "Isn't she pretty?" he went on, in an audible aside
to me. "I've a crow to pluck with her too. _Tag_, Fraeulein!" he added,
advancing to the young lady who had so struck him.

He was "struck" on an average once a week, every time with the most
beautiful and charming of her sex. The others, with one or two
exceptions, also turned. I said good-morning to Linders, who wished,
with a noble generosity, to make me a partaker in his cheerful
conversation with Fraeulein Luise of the first soprans, slipped from his
grasp and took my way homeward. Fraeulein Luischen was no doubt very
pretty, and in her way a companionable person. Unfortunately I never
could appreciate that way. With every wish to accommodate myself to the
only society with which fortune supplied me, it was but ill that I
succeeded.

I, Friedhelm Helfen, was at that time a lonely, soured misanthrope of
two-and-twenty. Let the announcement sound as absurd as it may, it is
simply and absolutely true, I was literally alone in the world. My last
relative had died and left me entirely without any one who could have
even a theoretical reason for taking any interest in me. Gradually,