man made a dignified obeisance, and
the curtain fell, to be again drawn up after a few moments, upon the
little drama that had been prepared for the amusement of the company.

It bore the title of "The Wicked Brothers," and was in reality but the
introduction to a longer play, designed to be produced upon some
future evening. In rhyming verses it set forth the history of a
musician, an artist, and a poet--three brothers who had been left at
the foundling-asylum of a little village, and had grown up to become
the curse of the region with their pranks; a very demon of evil-doing
appearing to possess them, and their parentage remaining an
impenetrable mystery to the quiet village folk. To them, after some of
the worst of their misdeeds, and just as the villagers were about to
wreak their vengeance on them, appeared no less a personage than the
devil himself, revealing to them that he was their father, and that he
had called them into being that they might work the ruin of the human
race. This said, he summoned them away with him to undertake their
mission in a larger field than this of their apprenticeship. And here
the action left them; the fantastic little piece closing at last with a
short epilogue by the same puppet who had introduced the play, his
final verses promising the Paradise associates that on some other night
they should enjoy a view of the results of this deep plot against their
kind, but hinting, nevertheless, that they should see how, in the end,
the true and beautiful should triumph, and the fell scheming of the
brothers and their father should be brought to naught.

CHAPTER IV.

The play came to an end amid great applause. The quaintness of the
composition, the easy flow of the words, and that mixture of gaiety and
melancholy which is always effective, excited such enthusiasm among the
spectators that the clapping would have no end, and the little puppet
who recited the epilogue was obliged to come forward again and again to
return thanks in the name of the poet.

Felix, especially, found much to admire in the little comedy, that had
apparently lost the charm of novelty for the others; especially the
extraordinary life-likeness of the little figures, scarcely two spans
high, which were carved, painted, and dressed in the most careful
manner, each in accordance with his character; the astonishing
dexterity with which they moved upon the stage, and, finally, and ab