d to the second
movement.

Smoothly and mournfully the Funeral March opened. The solemn melody
which glides softly through it is totally unlike the restless trampings
of Fate heard in other great compositions of the kind; yet Fate is
unmistakably there, quiet, but relentless, like

"the Pontic sea,
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on."

The _Scherzo_, with its beautiful octave run for the piano and delicious
change of harmony in the next measure,--the weird melody sketched out by
the first violin, and then yielded up to the piano,--and the strange,
but truly inspired, modulations which follow,--lapped my spirit in a
sweet bewilderment. I forgot all the before and after of that "sad and
incapable story" of human life and love which my fancy had been weaving
from the coarse, vulgar threads of common rumor; and even the pictures
vanished which had been evoked of the young prince,

"In his blown youth blasted with ecstasy."

I ceased following the modulations, interesting as they were; for often
music fills the thoughts so full that the ear forgets to listen to the
sweet harmonies.

But I was again aroused by the fine suspension and sequence which open
the last movement of the Quintette,--the _Allegro ma non troppo_. The
fugued passage, the reiteration of the opening theme, and the sad close
were all as tragic as the last scene in "Hamlet," the

"quarry that cries on, Havoc!"--

but it was also as graceful and touching as the words of the dying
prince to his friend,--

"Horatio, I am dead:
Thou liv'st. Report me and my cause aright
To the unsatisfied."

A thousand rumors flitted about the room as the concert broke up. Madame
C---- was so ill, they feared she was dying; and, strange to say, the
tenor, on leaving the platform after the Lucia finale, had been seized
with violent cramps and vomitings, which could not be checked, and he
also was lying in a very critical state. There were dark hints and many
improbable imaginings.

"All was not well, they deemed;
Some knew perchance,
And some besides were too discreetly wise
To more than hint their knowledge in surmise."

About an hour after midnight I was lying on the lounge in the anteroom
of the cottage. The faithful maid had taken my place by the
sick-bed,--for my invalid was still sleeping. It was a long, quiet
sleep; and so low and pe