into bed utterly unmindful of everything
else--even of the precaution of putting his work out of sight!

[Illustration: '_By the light of the moon he began his task._']

Alas, for poor Sebastian! he was to pay dearly for this act of
forgetfulness. As he lay sleeping--his dreams filled with the
realization of the fruits of his untiring industry--the books lying
open on the table where he had left them, and the moonbeams falling
gently on the page whereon his fingers had traced those last passages
but a few minutes before, the door opened, and a figure stole softly
into the room. It was Christoph himself, who, fancying he heard sounds
proceeding from Sebastian's chamber, had come to seek the cause. His
glance fell upon the open books. With a stride he was at the table,
bending over them. The next moment he raised his head and darted an
angry glance at the child's sleeping figure. But Sebastian only
smiled, and murmured something in his sleep, and the elder brother
turned once more to examine the writing. As he scanned the pages which
witnessed Sebastian's heart-work throughout those long months his face
hardened. There was no pity in his breast for the child who had thus
displayed his devotion to the art which he himself must have loved
after his own fashion--no sympathy for one who had spent so many hours
snatched from sleep in acquiring that which he, Christoph, had had it
in his power to bestow as a free gift--only anger and jealousy at the
thought that he had been outwitted by his little brother. With his
mouth curved into a cruel smile, Christoph seized the manuscript book
and the copy, and, taking them from the room, hid them away in a new
place where Sebastian could not possibly find them.

[Illustration: '_Christoph seized the manuscript book and the
copy._']

It was well for Sebastian that his love of music enabled him to
overcome the bitter disappointment occasioned by his brother's
cruelty, and so to continue the struggle for knowledge in the face of
such terrible odds. But there was one thing which served to comfort
him in his hour of trial, and of which Christoph was powerless to rob
him, and that was the _memory_ of the beautiful music he had copied
with such infinite pains. This in itself must have been a resource of
priceless value to him in helping him to bear with his brother's
oppression.

A new life opened for Sebastian when, at the age of fifteen, he
quitted his brother's roof and, w