to the modern world the music of
Hellas.

About half-past four in the afternoon Margaritis went out to buy
himself some respectable evening studs from a large emporium in the
neighbourhood. When he returned, singing and whistling on the stairs for
joy, he was met by Tina, who to his astonishment was quite pale, and he
saw at a glance that something had happened.

"They've put me off!" he said. "Or it was a mistake. I knew it was too
good to be true."

"It's not that," said Tina, "it's Carlo!" Carlo was their little boy,
who was nearly four years old.

"What?" said Margaritis.

Tina dragged him into their little sitting-room. "He is ill," she said,
"very ill, and I don't know what's the matter with him."

Margaritis turned pale. "Let me see him," he said. "We must get a
doctor."

"The doctor is coming: I went for him at once," she said. And then they
walked on tiptoe into the bedroom where Carlo was lying in his cot,
tossing about, and evidently in a raging fever. Half an hour later
the doctor came. Margaritis and Tina waited, silent and trembling with
anxiety, while he examined the child. At last he came from the bedroom
with a grave face. He said that the child was very seriously ill, but
that if he got through the night he would very probably recover.

"I must send a telegram," said Margaritis to Tina. "I cannot possibly
go." Tina squeezed his hand, and then with a brave smile she went back
to the sick-room.

Margaritis took a telegraph form out of a shabby leather portfolio, sat
down before the dining-table on which the cloth had been laid for tea
(for the sitting-room was the dining-room also), and wrote out the
telegram. And as he wrote his tears fell on the writing and smudged it.
His grief overcame him, and he buried his face in his hands and sobbed.
"What the Fates give with one hand," he thought to himself, "they take
away with another!" Then he heard himself, he knew not why, invoking the
gods of Greece, the ancient gods of Olympus, to help him. And at that
moment the whole room seemed to be filled with a strange light, and
he saw the wonderful figure of a man with a shining face and eyes that
seemed infinitely sad and at the same time infinitely luminous. The
figure held a lyre, and said to him in Greek:--

"It is well. All will be well. I will take your place at the concert!"

When the vision had vanished, the half written telegram on his table had
disappeared also.

* * * * *

The party a