nd admire him by
doing something which should prove that a girl's 'No' had not spoiled
his life. He had always meant to do something, and Amy's advice was
quite unnecessary. He had only been waiting till the aforesaid
blighted affections were decently interred. That being done, he felt
that he was ready to 'hide his stricken heart, and still toil on'.

As Goethe, when he had a joy or a grief, put it into a song, so Laurie
resolved to embalm his love sorrow in music, and to compose a Requiem
which should harrow up Jo's soul and melt the heart of every hearer.
Therefore the next time the old gentleman found him getting restless
and moody and ordered him off, he went to Vienna, where he had musical
friends, and fell to work with the firm determination to distinguish
himself. But whether the sorrow was too vast to be embodied in music,
or music too ethereal to uplift a mortal woe, he soon discovered that
the Requiem was beyond him just at present. It was evident that his
mind was not in working order yet, and his ideas needed clarifying, for
often in the middle of a plaintive strain, he would find himself
humming a dancing tune that vividly recalled the Christmas ball at
Nice, especially the stout Frenchman, and put an effectual stop to
tragic composition for the time being.

Then he tried an opera, for nothing seemed impossible in the beginning,
but here again unforeseen difficulties beset him. He wanted Jo for his
heroine, and called upon his memory to supply him with tender
recollections and romantic visions of his love. But memory turned
traitor, and as if possessed by the perverse spirit of the girl, would
only recall Jo's oddities, faults, and freaks, would only show her in
the most unsentimental aspects--beating mats with her head tied up in a
bandanna, barricading herself with the sofa pillow, or throwing cold
water over his passion a la Gummidge--and an irresistable laugh spoiled
the pensive picture he was endeavoring to paint. Jo wouldn't be put
into the opera at any price, and he had to give her up with a "Bless
that girl, what a torment she is!" and a clutch at his hair, as became
a distracted composer.

When he looked about him for another and a less intractable damsel to
immortalize in melody, memory produced one with the most obliging
readiness. This phantom wore many faces, but it always had golden
hair, was enveloped in a diaphanous cloud, and floated airily before
his mind's eye in a pleasing ch