yourself of things that everybody else about you has at Oxford, to
keep me in luxuries I was never used to.'

'My dear Dad, it's only of the nature of a repayment,' cried Arthur,
earnestly. 'You slaved and sacrificed and denied yourself when I
was a boy to send me to school, without which I would never have
got to Oxford at all; and you taught me music in your spare hours
(when you had any); and I owe everything I have or am or ever will
be to your unceasing and indefatigable kindness. So now you've
got to take repayment whether you will or not, for I insist upon
it. And if you won't come up to Oxford, which perhaps would be an
uncongenial place for you in many ways, I'll tell you what I'll do,
Daddy; I'll look out for a curacy somewhere in London, and we'll
take a little house together, and I'll furnish it nicely, and there
we shall live, sir, whatever you say, so not another word about
it. And now I want you to listen to the very best thing I've ever
composed, and tell me what you think of it.'

He sat down to the little hired cottage piano that occupied the
corner of the neat small room, and began to run his deft fingers
lightly over the keys. It was the Butterfly fantasia. The father
sat back in his red easy-chair, listening with all his ears, first
critically, then admiringly, at last enthusiastically. As Arthur's
closing notes died away softly towards the end, the old shoemaker's
delight could be restrained no longer. 'Artie,' he cried, gloating
over it, 'that's music! That's real music! You're quite right, my
boy; that's far and away the best thing you've ever written. It's
exquisite--so light, so airy, so unearthlike. But, Artie, there's
more than that in it. There's soul in it; and I know what it means.
You don't deceive your poor old Progenitor in a matter of musical