overheard: "Father, I shall lead to-night."

He put his hand on her head, and, looking down, studied her upturned
face. "Ah, my daughter," he said with a smile, "shall I guess what has
inspired you to-day? You have been listening to the passage birds. I
also heard them this morning passing in flocks. And you have been
following them in thought far away into those sun-bright lands where
winter never comes."

"No, father," she returned, "I have only been a little way from home in
thought--only to that spot where the grass has not yet grown to hide the
ashes and loose mold." He stooped and kissed her forehead, and then left
the room; and she, never noticing the hungry look with which I witnessed
the tender caress, also went away.

That some person was supposed to lead the singing every evening I knew,
but it was impossible for me ever to discover who the leader was; now,
however, after overhearing this conversation, I knew that on this
particular occasion it would be Yoletta, and in spite of the very poor
opinion she had expressed of my musical abilities, I was prepared to
admire the performance more than I had ever done before.

It commenced in the usual mysterious and indefinable manner; but after
a time, when it began to shape itself into melodies, the idea possessed
me that I was listening to strains once familiar, but long unheard and
forgotten. At length I discovered that this was Campana's music, only
not as I had ever heard it sung; for the melody of _M'appar sulla
tomba_ had been so transmuted and etherealized, as it were, that the
composer himself would have listened in wondering ecstasy to the
mournful strains, which had passed through the alembic of their more