"And now," resumed Edith, "may I trouble you to play the G minor, which has even puzzled me more than the one you have just played."

"It ought really to have been played first," replied Halfdan. "It is far intenser in its coloring and has a more passionate ring, but its conclusion does not seem to be final. There is no rest in it, and it seems oddly enough to be a mere transition into the major, which is its proper supplement and completes the fragmentary thought."

Mother and daughter once more telegraphed wondering looks at each other, while Halfdan plunged into the impetuous movements of the minor nocturne, which he played to the end with ever-increasing fervor and animation.

"Mr. Birch," said Edith, as he arose from the piano with a flushed face, and the agitation of the music still tingling through his nerves. "You are a far greater musician than you seem to be aware of. I have not been taking lessons for some time, but you have aroused all my musical ambition, and if you will accept me too, as a pupil, I shall deem it a favor."

"I hardly know if I can teach you anything," answered he, while his eyes dwelt with keen delight on her beautiful form. "But in my present position I can hardly afford to decline so flattering an offer."

"You mean to say that you would decline it if you were in a position to do so," said she, smiling.

"No, only that I should question my convenience more closely."

"Ah, never mind. I take all the responsibility. I shall cheerfully consent to being imposed upon by you."

Mrs. Van Kirk in the mean while had been examining the contents of a fragrant Russia-leather pocket-book, and she now drew out two crisp ten-dollar notes, and held them out toward him.

"I prefer to make sure of you by paying you in advance," said she, with a cheerfully familiar nod, and a critical glance at his attire, the meaning of which he did not fail to detect. "Somebody else might make the same discovery that we have made to-day, and outbid us. And we do not want to be cheated out of our good fortune in having been the first to secure so valuable a prize."

"You need have no fear on that score, madam," retorted Halfdan, with a vivid blush, and purposely misinterpreting the polite subterfuge. "You may rely upon my promise. I shall be here again, as soon as you wish me to return."

"Then, if you please, we shall look for you to-morrow morning at ten o'clock."

And Mrs. Van Kirk hesitatingly folded up her notes and replaced them in her pocket-book.

To our idealist there was something extremely odious in this sudden offer of money. It was the first time any one had offered to pay him, and it seemed to put him on a level with a common day-laborer. His first impulse was to resent it as a gratuitous humiliation, but a glance at Mrs. Van Kirk's countenance, which was all aglow with officious benevolence, re-assured him, and his indignation died away.

That same afternoon Olson, having been informed of his friend's good fortune, volunteered a loan of a hundred dollars, and accompanied him to a fashionable tailor, where he underwent a pleasing metamorphosis.

V.

In Norway the ladies dress with the innocent purpose of protecting themselves against the weather; if this purpose is still remotely present in the toilets of American women of to-day, it is, at all events, sufficiently disguised to challenge detection, very much like a primitive Sanscrit root in its French and English derivatives. This was the reflection which was uppermost in Halfdan's mind as Edith, ravishing to behold in the airy grace of her fragrant morning toilet, at the appointed time took her seat at his side before the piano. Her presence seemed so intense, so all-absorbing, that it left no thought for the music. A woman, with all the spiritual mysteries which that name implies, had always appeared to him rather a composite phenomenon,