als, and a true and faithful friend, he left
behind him a record that shows a singular blending of simple domestic
virtues with great artistic qualities, the union adorning a theatrical
career which was one series of dazzling triumphs.

LUCY H. HOOPER.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

CONSERVATORY LIFE IN BOSTON.

Our aspiring young friend from the rural districts who comes to Boston,
the great musical centre, for the art-training she cannot enjoy at home,
is full of enthusiasm as she crosses the threshold of that teeming hive,
the New England Conservatory of Music. The conflicting din of organs,
pianos and violins, of ballad, scale and operetta, though discordant to
the actual ear have a harmony which is not lost to her spiritual sense.
It is a choral greeting to the new recruit, who gathers in a moment all
the moral support humanity derives from sympathy and companionship in a
common purpose. Devoutly praying that this inspiration may not ooze out
at her fingers' ends, she goes into the director's sanctum to be
examined. This trial has pictured itself to her active imagination for
weeks past. Of course he will ask her to play one of her pieces, perhaps
several. Has she not, ever since her plans for coming to the
Conservatory were matured, been engaged in carefully training,
manipulating, her battle-horse for this critical experiment? As the door
of that little room closes upon her her knees begin to tremble. But how
easy and reassuring is the director's manner! He requests her to be
seated at the piano. Will she be able to remember a note at all? That is
now the question. Her musical memory is for the nonce obliterated. He
may have an intuition of this, for he says quietly, "Now play me a scale
and a five-finger exercise." Cecilia does this mechanically, and feels
encouraged. Now for the piece, the battle-horse, to be brought out and
shown off. She waits quietly a minute. But he asks for nothing more. Her
mere touch expresses to his practised ear her probable grade of
acquirement, and he assigns her to the instructor he deems best suited
to test her abilities and classify her in accordance with them.

In a day or two she finds herself in regular working order, one of a
class of four. "And am I only to have fifteen minutes for _my_ lesson,"
she asks herself, "when I always had an hour from the professor at
Woodville?" She knows that recitation is the cream of the lesson. In the
actual render