but she cared most for singing, and for hearing him play and
talk. She never felt shy or timid with him, and one day, at
the end of a long rhapsody about German music and German
composers, she asked him innocently enough--

"Who was Beethoven, and Mozart, and--and all those others you
talk about? I never heard of them before."

"Never before!" he cried, in a sort of comic amazement and
dismay. "Here is a little girl who has lived half her life in
Germany, who talks German, and yet never heard of Beethoven,
nor of Mozart, nor of--of all those others! Listen, then--they
were some of the greatest men that ever lived."

And, indeed, Madelon heard enough about them after that; for
delighted to have a small, patient listener, to whom he could
rhapsodize as much as he pleased in his native tongue, the
violinist henceforth lost no opportunity of delivering his
little lectures, and would harangue for an hour together, not
only about music and musicians, but about a thousand other
things--a queer, high-flown, rambling jumble, often enough,
which Madelon could not possibly follow nor understand, but to
which she nevertheless liked to listen. A safer teacher she
could hardly have had; she gained much positive information
from him, and when he got altogether beyond her, she remained
impressed with the conviction that he was speaking from the
large experiences of deep, mysterious wisdom and knowledge,
and sat listening with a reverential awe, as to some strange,
lofty strain, coming to her from some higher and nobler region
than she could hope to attain to as yet, and of which she