sic. But the
child had genius, where his father had possessed only talent. To
Martin Moore's outward mastery of the violin was added the mystery and
intensity of his mother's nature, with some more subtle quality still,
which had perhaps come to him from the grandmother he so strongly
resembled. Moore had understood what a career was naturally before the
child, and he had trained him in the technique of his art from the time
the slight fingers could first grasp the bow. When nine-year-old Felix
came to the Carmody manse, he had mastered as much of the science of
the violin as nine out of ten musicians acquire in a lifetime; and he
brought with him his father's violin; it was all Martin Moore had to
leave his son--but it was an Amati, the commercial value of which nobody
in Carmody suspected. Mr. Leonard had taken possession of it and Felix
had never seen it since. He cried himself to sleep many a night for
the loss of it. Mr. Leonard did not know this, and if Janet Andrews
suspected it she held her tongue--an art in which she excelled. She "saw
no harm in a fiddle," herself, and thought Mr. Leonard absurdly strict
in the matter, though it would not have been well for the luckless
outsider who might have ventured to say as much to her. She had connived
at Felix's visits to old Abel Blair, squaring the matter with her
Presbyterian conscience by some peculiar process known only to herself.

When Janet heard of the promise which Mr. Leonard had exacted from Felix
she seethed with indignation; and, though she "knew her place" better
than to say anything to Mr. Leonard about it, she made her disapproval
so plainly manifest in her bearing that the stern, gentle old man found
the atmosphere of his hitherto peaceful manse unpleasantly chill and
hostile for a time.

It was the wish of his heart that Felix should be a minister, as he
would have wished his own son to be, had one been born to him. Mr.
Leonard thought rightly that the highest work to which any man could be
called was a life of service to his fellows; but he made the mistake of
supposing the field of service much narrower than it is--of failing to
see that a man may minister to the needs of humanity in many different
but equally effective ways.

Janet hoped that Mr. Leonard might not exact the fulfilment of Felix's
promise; but Felix himself, with the instinctive understanding of
perfect love, knew that it was vain to hope for any change of viewpoint
in his gra