"'One of Paggernyner's' (I wish all the fellers in your stories
didn't have such tough old names!) 'most dis-as-ter-ous triumphs he
had when playing at Lord Holland's.' (Who was Lord Holland, uncle
Tony?) 'Some one asked him to im-provise on the violin the story of
a son who kills his father, runs a-way, becomes a high-way-man, falls
in love with a girl who will not listen to him; so he leads her to a
wild country site, suddenly jumping with her from a rock into an a-b-
y-s-s'"

"Abyss."

"'--a--rock--into--an--abyss, where they disappear for ever.
Paggernyner listened quietly, and when the story was at an end he
asked that all the lights should be distinguished.'"

"Look closer, Davy."

"'Should be EXtinguished. He then began playing, and so terrible was
the musical in-ter-pre-ta-tion of the idea which had been given him
that several of the ladies fainted, and the sal-salon-sAlon, when
relighted, looked like a battle-field.' Cracky! Wouldn't you like
to have been there, uncle Tony? But I don't believe anybody ever
played that way, do you?"

"Yes," said the listener, dreamily raising his sightless eyes to the
elm-tree that grew by the kitchen door. "I believe it, and I can
hear it myself when you read the story to me. I feel that the secret
of everything in the world that is beautiful, or true, or terrible,
is hidden in the strings of my violin, Davy, but only a master can