break of the billows on the beach beneath the cliff made the
theme where before it had played the bass.

I crept stealthily out of the bed-room, and, after exchanging my
travelling-gown for a cool white robe, stretched my tired body on the
lounge in the anteroom.

There I lay with cold finger-tips pressed against burning eyelids, and
icy palms holding with a firm grasp throbbing temples, under which
flowed the hot, seething tide of mortal anguish, anxiety, and aching
love. Some one touched me on the shoulder. I looked up. It was Max who
was standing beside me.

"There is a great musical treat for you," he said in a low voice. "The
A---- Society is here, and also part of B----'s Opera Troupe, with
Madame C----, and D----, the great tenor. The troupe and society united
are to give such a concert as rarely falls to the lot of mortals to
hear. I never saw a better programme. Look!"

I read over the concert-bill. First there was an overture; then several
scenes from "Lucia di Lammermoor,"--that great Shakspearian drama, whose
dread catastrophe of Death and Doom leaves in the memory of the hearer a
heavenly sorrow unmixed with earthly taint. It was the master-work of
two poets, Scott and Donizetti, who had conceived it at the best period
of their lives, when they were in all the vigor of manhood, and when
mind and fancy had become ripened by experience. It was formed in one
of those supreme instants, which come like "angels' visits" to artists,
when they were enabled, through a power more like inspiration than art,
to throw aside all outward influences, and fashion as deftly as Nature
could the sad life of the Master of Ravenswood and his "sweet spirit's
mate."

The Lucia scenes were grouped together and occupied the main part of the
programme. They were those that told the story of the brief passion,
from the sweet birth of love up to the solemn hour when both lovers
passed away to that resting-place "where nothing could touch them
further."

My eyes lingered over the titles of the scenes, while my memory swiftly
recalled their characteristics:--the First Duet between Lucia and
Edgardo, a passionate burst of youthful love, as delicious as the tender
dialogues between Romeo and his Juliet;--the Sextette, that masterly
pyramidal piece of vocal harmony, in which the voices group around those
of the two lovers, and all mount up glowingly like a flame on a
sacrificial altar;--the heart-rending passage where Lucia's spirit,