rman, he sat there, saying little, eating less, and
smoking a great deal; and Madelon at his side was speechless,
only rousing herself later in the evening to coax him into
playing once more all her favourite tunes. Everyone, except,
perhaps, M. Linders, felt more or less sorry at the breaking
up of a pleasant little society which had lasted for some
months, and the violinist almost felt as if he were being
separated from his own child. Madelon wished him good-bye that
night, but she ran upstairs very early the next morning to see
him once more before starting.

The old man was greatly moved; he was standing looking sadly
out of the window when she came in, and when he saw her in her
little travelling cloak, the tears began to run down his
rugged old cheeks.

"God bless thee, my little one!" he said. "I shall miss thee
sorely--but thou wilt not forget me?"

"Never, never!" cries Madelon, with a little sob, and
squeezing the kind hands that held hers so tightly.

"And if I should never see thee again," said the German, in
broken accents, "if--if--remember, I----" He hesitated and
stammered, and M. Linders' voice was heard calling Madelon.

"I must go," she said, "papa is calling me; but I will never
forget you--never; ah! you have been so good, so kind to me.
See here," she said, unclosing one of her hands which she had
kept tightly shut, and showing the little green and gold fish
Horace Graham had given her years before, "I promised never to
part with this, but I have nothing else--and--and I love you so
much--will you have it?"

"No, no," said the old man, smiling and shaking his head,
"keep thy promise, and thy treasure, my child; I do not
require that to remind me of thee. Farewell!"

He put her gently out of the door as her father's step was
heard coming upstairs, and closed it after her. She never did
see him again, for he died in less than two years after their
parting.

M. Linders went to Homburg, to Baden, to Wiesbaden, but he was
no longer the man he had been before his illness; he won
largely, indeed, at times, but he lost as largely at others,
playing with a sort of reckless, feverish impatience, instead
of with the steady coolness that had distinguished him
formerly. Old acquaintance who met him said that M. Linders
was a broken man, and that his best days were over: men who
had been accustomed to bet on his success, shrugged their
shoulders, and sought for some steadier and luckier player to