like a gentle, deliciously soothing opiate upon
the Norseman's fancy and lifted him into hitherto
unknown regions of mingled misery and
bliss. She seemed a combination of the most
divine contradictions, one moment supremely
conscious, and in the next adorably child-like
and simple, now full of arts and coquettish
innuendoes, then again nave, unthinking and
almost boyishly blunt and direct; in a word,
one of those miraculous New York girls whom
abstractly one may disapprove of, but in the
concrete must abjectly adore. This easy
predominance of the masculine heart over the mas-
culine reason in the presence of an impressive
woman, has been the motif of a thousand tragedies
in times past, and will inspire a thousand
more in times to come.

Halfdan sat down at the grand piano and
played Chopin's Nocturne in G major, flinging
out that elaborate filigree of sound with an
impetuosity and superb ABANDON which caused the
ladies to exchange astonished glances behind his
back. The transitions from the light and ethereal
texture of melody to the simple, more concrete
theme, which he rendered with delicate
shadings of articulation, were sufficiently
startling to impress even a less cultivated ear than
that of Edith Van Kirk, who had, indeed,
exhausted whatever musical resources New York