pointed roof, with some half-broken
spikes to catch one, in case of missing one's footing, or escaping the
fall of thirty feet below. And that little frightened-looking, timid
Laura, if he could only see her again!

He questioned whether this were not a possible thing. He had formed a
slight acquaintance with Mrs. Ashton, who was occupying the rooms below;
he had met her on the stairs, had exchanged some words with her. It struck
him it would be a proper thing to offer her some tickets to his next
concert. At this moment he was interrupted, was summoned away, and he
deferred his intention until the next day.

The next day he presented himself at the door of Mrs. Ashton's parlor. She
invited him to come in, cordially, and he was presented to her niece, who
sat in the window with her work. Laura scarcely looked up as he entered,
and went on with her crochet.

Presently Arnold opened his business.

"Would Mrs. Ashton accept some tickets for his concert that evening?"

Mrs. Ashton looked pleased, thought him very kind.

Arnold took out the tickets for herself, for Mr. Ashton. He offered
another.

"Would her niece be pleased to go? would Miss"--

Laura looked up from her work and hesitated.

"She was much obliged, she didn't know, but she had promised her cousin to
go to the theatre with him."

Mrs. Ashton, thinking the musician looked displeased, attempted to
explain.

"Laura was not very fond of music. She did not like concerts very well.
She seldom came to New York, and the theatre was a new thing to her."

"I do not wonder," said Arnold, withdrawing his ticket. "I sympathize with
Mademoiselle in her love for the theatre; and concert-music is but poor
stuff. If one finds a glimpse there of a higher style, a higher art, it is
driven away directly by the recurrence of something trifling and
frivolous."

Mrs. Ashton did not agree with the musician. She could not understand why
Laura did not like concerts. For herself, she liked the variety: the
singing relieved the piano, and one thing helped another.

Arnold looked towards Laura for a contradiction; he wanted to hear her
defence of her philosophy, for he was convinced she had some in not liking
music. To him every one had expressed a fondness for music; and it was a
rarity, an originality, to find some one who confessed she did not like
it.

But Laura did not seem inclined to reply; she was counting the stitches in
her crochet. In the silence, Arnold too