tried to find out for himself how the music was made. And it could not
have sounded so very badly, for his father had smiled, saying, "Come,
now!" and placed the big fingers of his left hand over his son's, and
held the little hand and the bow together in his right; and thus they
played for a long time, and produced a great many sweet tunes.

On the following day, after his father's departure, the boy tried again
and again to play, until at last he did succeed in producing a tune
quite correctly. Soon after, however, the fiddle disappeared, and never
made its appearance again.

Often, when they were together, the man would begin to sing
softly,--softly at first, then more and more distinctly as he became
more interested, and the boy know the words, he could at least follow
the tune. The father sang Italian always; and the child understood a
great deal, but not well enough to sing. One tune, however, he knew
better than any other, for his father had repeated it many hundred
times. It was part of a long song, and began in this wise:--

"One evening In Peschiera."

It was a sad melody that some one had arranged to a pretty ballad, and
it particularly pleased the lad, so that he always sang it with pleasure
and with a feeling of awe; and it sounded very sweetly, for the lad had
a clear, bell-like voice, that harmonized beautifully with his father's
strong basso. And each time after they had sung this song from beginning
to end, his father clapped the boy kindly on the shoulder, saying, "Well
done, Henrico! well done!" This was the way his father called him, but
he was called "Rico" only by everybody else.