"Go back to your corner.
I must converse with my violin."

She returned heavily to her place, feeling the darker and colder
because that wine had been spilled before she could raise it to her
lips. One taste, she fancied, might have begun a transformation in her
life! But we know not the weight of the chains we lay upon our limbs.

The Egyptian's buoyant humor had dismissed the whole matter in another
moment. He opened his violin-case, lovingly caressing the instrument
as he took it out. Then he tucked it fondly under his chin, and
resumed his walking. The delicately potent wine warbled through his
nerves, and tinted memory with imagination.

The bow, traversing the strings, drew forth from them a sweet and
plaintive note, like the tender remonstrance of a neglected friend. No
language says so much in so short space as music, nor will, till we
banish those dead bones, consonants, and adopt the pure vowel speech
of infants and angels.

"Ay, long have we been apart, my beloved one, and much have I needed
thee!" murmured Manetho. "I yearned for thy soothing and refreshing
voice; yea, death walked near me, because thou, my preserver, wast not
by to guard me. But, rejoice! all is again well with us,--the hour of
our triumph is near!"

The fine instrument responded, carolling forth an exquisite paean,--an
ascending scale, mounting to a breathless ecstasy, and falling in
slower melody along gliding waves of fortunate sound. The player drank
each perfect note, till his pulses beat in unison with the rhythm. His
violin and he were wedded lovers since his youth, nor had discord ever
come between them.

"Two little children weaving flower-chains for each other in the
grass. I said, 'The one that first comes to me shall be mine!' And the
little maiden arose, leaving her brother among the flowers. So one was
taken and the other left. But, behold! the brother has come to play
with his sister once more!"

Again the music--a divine philosopher's stone--touched the theme into
fine-spun golden harmony. The dusky kitchen, with its one dull lamp
glimmering on the table, broadened with marble floors, and sprang
aloft in airy arches! Twinkling stars hung between the columns,
burning with a fragrance like flowers. It was a summer morning, just
before sunrise. The clear faces of children peeped from violet-strewn
recesses where they had passed the night; and, as their sweet eyes
met, they shouted for joy, and ran to embrace one anoth