udevant had accommodatingly vacated the family residence at
Nohant in favor of his wife. It was here she took the convalescent
Chopin. He was charmed with the rambling old house, its walled-in
gardens with their arbors of clustering grapes, and the green meadows
stretching down to the water's edge, where the little river ran its way
to the ocean.

Back of the house was a great forest of mighty trees, beneath whose
thick shade the sun's rays never entered, and a half-mile away arose the
spire of the village church. There were no neighbors, save a cheery old
priest, and the simple villagers who made respectful obeisance as they
passed. Here it was that Matthew Arnold came to pay his tribute to
genius, also Liszt and the fair Countess d'Agoult, Delacroix, Renan,
Lamennais, Lamartine, and so many others of the great and excellent.
Chopin was enchanted with the place, and refused to go back to Paris.
Madame Dudevant insisted, and explained to him that she took him to
Majorca to spend the Winter, but she had no intention or thought of
caring for him longer than the few months that might be required to
restore him to health. But he cried and clung to her with such
half-childish fright that she had not the heart to send him away.

The summer months passed and the leaves began to turn scarlet and gold,
and he only consented to return to Paris on her agreeing to go with him.
So they returned together, and had rooms not so very far apart.

He went back sturdily to his music-teaching, with an occasional
musicale, yet gave but one public concert in the space of ten years.

The exquisite quality of Chopin's playing appealed only to the sacred
few, but his piano scores were slowly finding sale, through the
advertisement they received by being played by Liszt, Tausig and others.
Yet the critics almost uniformly condemned his work as bizarre and
erratic.

Each Summer he spent at lovely Nohant, and there found the rest and
quiet which got nerves back to the norm and allowed him to go on with
his work. So passed the years away. Of this we are very sure--no taint
exists on the record of Chopin excepting possibly his relationship with
George Sand. That he endeavored to win her full heart's love, for the
purpose of honorable marriage, Mr. Hadow is fully convinced. But when
his suit failed, after an eight years' courtship, and the lover was
discarded, he ceased to work. His heart was broken; he lingered on for
two years, and then death c