from him; with fiddle-bow in hand, and fiddle held close and tenderly
against his shoulder. De Arthenay, looking for his little girl!

Not content with scanning every face as it passes, he looks up at the
houses, searching with eager eye their blank, close-shuttered walls,
as if in hope of seeing through the barriers of brick and stone, and
surprising the secrets that may lurk within. Now and then a house
seems to take his fancy, for he stops, and still looking up at the
windows, plays a tune. It is generally the same tune,--a simple,
homely old air, which the street-boys can readily take up and whistle,
though they do not hear it in the music-halls or on the hand-organs. A
languid crowd gathers round him when he pauses thus, for street-boys
know a good fiddler when they hear him; and this is a good fiddler.

When a crowd has collected, the old man turns his attention from the
silent windows (they are generally silent; or if a face looks out, it
is not the beloved one which is in his mind night and day, day and
night) and scans the faces around him, with sad, eager eyes. Then,
stopping short in his playing, he taps sharply on his fiddle, and asks
in a clear voice if any one has seen or heard of a blind child, with
beautiful brown hair, clear blue eyes, and the most wonderful voice in
the world.

No one has heard of such a child; but one tells him of a blind negro
who can play the trombone, and another knows of a blind woman who
tells fortunes "equal to the best mejums;" and so on, and so on. He
shakes his head with a patient look, makes his grand bow, and passes
on to the next street, the next wondering crowd, the next
disappointment. Sometimes he is hailed by some music-hall keeper who
hears him play, and knows a good thing when he hears it, and who