came a voice from behind. The boy awoke with a
start, and tried to butt his head through the pickets to escape in that
direction. He thought it was the coachman. He turned and saw the kindly
face of Signore Barezzi himself.

"Do I like music? Me! No, I mean yes, when it is like that!" he
exclaimed, beginning his reply with a tremolo and finishing bravura.

"That is my daughter playing; come inside with me." The hand of the
great man reached out, and the urchin clutched at it as if it were
something he had been longing for.

They walked through the big gates where a stone lion kept guard on each
side. The lions never moved. They walked up the steps, and entering the
parlor saw a young woman seated at the piano.

"Grazia, dear, here is the little boy we saw the other day--you
remember? I thought I would bring him in." The young woman came forward
and touched the lad on his tawny head with one of her beautiful
hands--the beautiful hands that had just been playing the "Sonata."

"That's right, little boy, we have seen you outside there before, and if
I had known you were there tonight, I would have gone out and brought
you in; but Papa has done the service for me. Now, you must sit down
right over there where I can see you, and I will play for you. But won't
you tell us your name?"

"Me?" replied the little boy, "why--why my name is Giuseppe Verdi--I am
ten years old now--going on 'leven--you see, I like to hear you play
because I play myself, a little bit!"

* * * * *

For over a hundred years three-fourths of Italy's population had been on
reduced rations. Starvation even yet crouches just around the corner.

In his childhood young Verdi used to wear a bit of rope for a girdle,
and when hunger gnawed importunately, he would simply pull his belt one
knot tighter, and pray that the ravens would come and treat him as well
as they did Elijah. His parents were so poor that the question of
education never came to them; but desire has its way, so we find the boy
at ten years of age running errands for a grocer with a musical
attachment. This grocer, at Busseto, Jasquith by name, hung upon the
fringe of art, and made the dire mistake of mixing business with his
fad, for he sold his wares to sundry gentlemen who played in bands. This
led the good man to moralize at times, and he would say to Giuseppe, who
had been promoted from errand-boy to clerk: "You can trust a first
violin, and a 'cell