frantic through woe, rises supreme over native timidity and
irresolution, and, with one fierce burst of love and grief, which
startles alike tyrant and friend, soars aloft in the terrible, but grand
realm of madness;--and the Finale, where the dying Edgardo sighs out
that delicious air which has been well styled, "a melody of Plato sung
by a Christian soul."

The programme closed fitly with Schumann's Quintette in E flat Major.

This Quintette is one of remarkable power and beauty. It is for 'rano,
viola, first and second violin, and 'cello. It is divided into four
movements: _Allegro brillante_; _In moda d'una Marcia_; _Scherzo_; and
_Allegro ma non troppo_.

As I handed the bill back to Max, he whispered to my maid, who left the
room an instant, and returned with a mantle on her arm.

"Come," he said, in a decided tone, "you must go, and quickly, too, for
they are already playing the overture. You can surely trust Ernestine
with the watching, as you will be such a short distance off; my
serving-man shall wait in the arcade, and come for you, if you are
needed."

Then, raising me with kind force from the lounge, he wrapped the mantle
around me. As we passed out, we stood for an instant at the
bed-room-door, looking at the invalid. The breath still came in short
pants, but the truce was being kept: sleep had come in between as a
transient mediator.

I noticed in the dim light the attenuated frame, the shrunken features,
the pinched nostrils, the very shadowy outlining of death. With choking
throat and swelling breast I looked at Max, my eyes saying what my voice
could not,--

"I cannot go."

Without a word of reply, he lifted me out of the apartment, and in a few
moments we were sitting in a dim corner of the concert-room, listening
to the charming First Duet.

The scenes followed one another rapidly, and displayed even more
powerfully than I had ever noticed before the one pervading theme. Sense
and imagination became possessed with it; at each succeeding passage the
interest increased continuously, until at the end the passion mounted up
as on mighty wings and carried my sad heart aloft and beyond "the
ordinary conditions of humanity."

The prima donna, Madame C----, and Signor D----, the tenor, had a sad
story of scandal floating about them; it was on every one's lips. Madame
C---- was no longer in her first youth, but she was still very
beautiful, more attractive than she had been in her younger days,