exactly--what I'm going to play; and if I don't
know, and you don't know, how are we to keep together?"

"Nobody can play your own things but yourself, of course--that is,
until you are able to write them down; but, if you would learn
something, we could play that together."

"I don't know how to learn. I've heard tell of the notes and all that,
but I don't know how to work them."

"You have heard the choir in the church--all keeping with the organ,"
said Mary.

"Scarcely since I was a child--and not very often then--though my
mother took me sometimes. But I was always wanting to get out again,
and gave no heed."

"Do you never go to church now?"

"No, miss--not for long. Time's too precious to waste."

"How do you spend it, then?"

"As soon as I've had my breakfast--that's on a Sunday, I mean--I get up
and lock my door, and set myself to have a day of it. Then I read the
next thing where I stopped last--whether it be a chapter or a
verse--till I get the sense of it--if I can't get that, it's no manner
of use to me; and I generally know when I've got it by finding the bow
in one hand and the fiddle in the other. Then, with the two together, I
go stirring and stirring about at the story, and the music keeps coming
and coming; and when it stops, which it does sometimes all at once,
then I go back to the book."

"But you don't go on like that all day, do you?" said Mary.

"I generally go on till I'm hungry, and then I go out for something to
eat. My landlady won't get me any dinner. Then I come back and begin
again."

"Will you let me teach you to read music?" said Mary, more and more
delighted with him, and desirous of contributing to his growth--the one
great service of the universe.

"If you would, miss, perhaps then I might be able to learn. You see, I
never was like other people. Mother was the only one that didn't take
me for an innocent. She used to talk big things about me, and the rest
used to laugh at her. She gave me her large Testament when she was
dying, but, if it hadn't been for Ann, I should never have been able to
read it well enough to understand it. And now Ann tells me I'm a
heathen and worship my fiddle, because I don't go to chapel with her;
but it do seem such a waste of good time. I'll go to church, though,
miss, if you tell me it's the right thing to do; only it's hard to work
all the week, and be weary all the Sunday. I should only be longing for
my fiddle all the time. You don't t