Fritz Geisling, who for many years had lived in two rooms, second floor, No. 10 Amity Place, was short, fat, and bald. Each morning he arose at seven, went out to an adjoining cafe where German cookery was served "twenty-one meals for three dollars," as stated on its bill of fare, and returned to his domicile, glancing at the small sign, "Violin Lessons," placed above the upper bell, and mounting the two flights of stairs, awaited in his office, sitting room and parlor combined, the few pupils who came his way. At noon he absorbed another of the "twenty-one for three dollar" productions of culinary art, washed down with a stein of foaming beer, and then, if it were matinÉe day at the Alhambra Temple of Vaudeville, betook himself thither, where he played second violin. Each evening, from the opening in September until closing time in June, he was at his post, sawing away like the machine he was and as devoid of sentiment. When he escaped the Alhambra, it was to join his cronies in a convenient saloon where pinocle, beer, and choice Teutonic gossip relieved the monotony of his existence. Year in and year out he was the same phlegmatic, good-natured Dutchman, and lived the same unvarying and emotionless existence. Of the great Rockhaven stock scheme he had never heard, and would not have understood it if he had. Of "the street" and its multiplicity of deals where "to do" the other fellow and not let him "do" you was the golden rule, he was equally innocent—a drop in the throbbing artery of human existence.

And then, one winter morning, Fritz returned to his lair to find awaiting him a strangely clad man and a young half-scared girl.

"I'm told ye gin lessons on the fiddle," said the man, "an' if ye do, I've come to engage ye fer this ere gal."

Fritz bowed low, conscious that a pair of magnificent eyes were watching him.

"It vash mine broveshion," he answered, "und von tollar each ish de brice. Ish de lady to be de pupils?"

"She's the one," came the answer; "an' I want ye to teach her all the frills, 'n' yer money's ready an' waitin' any time."

"Ish she von peginner?" came from Fritz.

"Wal, sorter, 'n' sorter not," replied the man; "my name's Hutton, an' this ere's my niece, Miss Hutton, an' I've larnt her to saw just a leetle to start her off, ez it war. If ye'd like, she'll show ye what she kin do with a bow. Play suthin' slow, Mona, fust," he added as a violin was handed her, "till ye kinder ketch yerself, an' then suthin' lively."

Mona somewhat nervously complied, and gaining courage as she forgot where she was, skipped over a half-dozen of the familiar Scotch airs she could play best, while the eyes of Fritz twinkled.

"She vash no peginner," he said elated; "she vash blain' alretty yet very mooch." And seizing a music-rack and spreading a late composition upon it, he added, "Ef de lady vill blease blay dot, ve'll see vot she can do."

"Ye've got'r now, perfessor," interposed Jess, "she can't read that music."

But a surprise was awaiting him, for though half-scared Mona hesitated and made a few slips, she played the piece through to the end without a halt.

"Why, girlie," exclaimed Jess, "I'm proud o' ye. I didn't think ye cud do so well. Now, perfessor, ye kin take her in hand; 'n' mind ye don't let up on her till she's larned the hull biznes, fer fiddlin's goin' to be her futur' perfession."

That night, when Fritz had once more escaped the crowded theatre and was quaffing his foaming stein, could any native American translate the rapid fire jargon with which he related his morning experience, he would have heard a marvellous tale.

"Mein Gott in Himmel!" Fritz exclaimed, after the fourth glass had been emptied, "but she blayed mit such feelin's und such eyes dot mit me made such strangeness feels. Ach, but she vas a vonder!"

And as time passed on, each of the two days a week when Mona came to take her lesson only served to increase that "vonder," for now that her timidity had worn away, the genius that lurked in her fingers asserted itself. In technical art she was as yet a pupil, but in the far more impressive art of inspiration and expression, so natural to her, she had naught to learn.

"She blays mit her heart und all ofer, und vorgets all I tells her of bosition und oxecution," explained Fritz to his cronies, "und ven she looks at me I forgets meinself."

Then as the weeks went by, a new idea came to Fritz, who seldom had any; and straightway he began to nurse it.

"Ef she so blays mit mein violin, ven I haf heard dat music all mein life, vot vill beoples dinks who vash to hear her on de stage?" he said to himself. "I vill say nodding und make some surbrises by and by."

That Mona had the same secret ambition he knew not, and most likely it were as well he did not. But the long upward path to her goal was not an easy one, for if Fritz had lacked emotion, he excelled in detail; and each time Mona forgot, as she so often did, it provoked expressions from him that tinged her cheeks with humiliation.

"I have much to learn," she answered almost pitifully, whenever her uncle asked of her progress, "and so much to unlearn, it seems discouraging."

"It'll come easier bimeby, girlie," he would respond cheerfully, "the fust lesson in anything is allus the hardest."

But the vexations of tuition were only a small part of Mona's burden; for as the weeks went by, and she became accustomed to her new life and surroundings, the old heartache returned, and as her uncle often insisted that she and her mother go out to some evening entertainment as a break in the quiet boarding-house life they led, a new fear assailed her. What if on street car or in theatre lobby she should suddenly meet Winn Hardy! His name had not been mentioned for many months, and it was as if he were dead.

And now Mona was unlearning the sad lesson of loving, and in its place came a new inspiration, an ambition so broad, so uplifting, so full of possibilities, that even the voice of love was stilled. At times the face of Winn would return to her, however, and always bringing a thorn.

"He is what he said all his world were," she would say to herself, "selfish, fickle, and heartless. He wished to flatter and amuse me and himself as well, but that was all." And then the moment he had held her in his arms would return to give the lie to all such thoughts.

At times she hoped that she might meet him some day, just to give one look of reproach and pass on without a word; and then she dreaded to do so, believing herself powerless to resist her own longings. Feeling thus a sense of the wrong he had done her, the tender looks and words he had uttered, and at last that one sweet moment,—all came back again. Put him out of her mind she could not, nor his face either. By night, thoughts of him haunted her pillow, and whenever she set foot out of their temporary home, no matter where she went, and until she was safe in it again, that peculiar dread was with her.

She did not know that during all these months of her suspense, Winn Hardy, discouraged at the utter failure of his ambition and hopeless of his future, was not only doing his best to put her out of his thoughts, but battling for another foothold in life. Forget her, or the obligation whispered on Rockhaven's wave-washed cliff, he could not and did not; but in the hard grind of life and competition of wage-earning, love plays only a minor part. Even less so with Winn than most, for he distrusted all sentiment, even in himself.

Few have the scope to judge another from that person's own viewpoint of needs and impulses; and Mona, untutored in the ways of man, was less competent than many.

To her, the words "I love you" were a sacred obligation, far above all selfish needs and vulgar money making and, like the glittering star of fame, an inspiration.

It had been sweet to her in those summer days, but the real star of fame was now rising in her horizon, and the lesser one slowly fading away.

She was fast losing her old timidity, and as each day she felt herself gaining a better mastery over her violin, the darling wish of her new ambition grew stronger.

And then another influence came to her aid, for phlegmatic Fritz, in whose life the mechanical duty of each evening's playing and the convivial hours with his cronies had measured his ambition, became imbued with a broader one, and that to train his pupil for public playing, and so, when thus fitted and launched in this new life under his tuition, to pose as the discoverer of a genius. And more than that, as her eyes began to work their spell upon him, the hope of love entered his heart.

"Ah, Mees Hutton," he would say to her, when her lesson had been rendered, "you haf der spirit, der soul of der blaying alretty yet, and some day you haf him and der vorld vill listen entranced;" and his little eyes would twinkle and rotund face glow with an enthusiasm that was like wine to Mona.

And now another brand of fuel was added to the fire of her ambition, for a great singer's appearance in the city was heralded in the press and Jess, already warped into the world's ways of dress and amusement, took Mona and her mother to hear this operatic star. They had already visited most of the theatres, and though Mona had felt a constant dread of meeting one, the sight of whose face she knew would seem like a knife thrust, she was gradually overcoming that. At first a timid girl and stranger to the city ways, her keen and ready observation of them had made rapid change in her self-possession. Then, too, the difference in her own and her mother's wardrobe had been a help, for Jess had spared no money in his new rÔle of husband and father, and so far as dress went with all three, no observer would realize that they came from an out-of-the-way island, where garb and deportment were unknown factors in life.

But that evening at the opera, with all its attendant excitement of richly gowned womankind whose dÉcolletÉ costumes and sparkling jewels became a revelation to Mona, the handsome men, the exquisite music, the wonderful singing, and the chief star, ablaze with diamonds, bowing and smiling as wreaths and baskets of costly flowers were passed over the footlights to her, wrought a spell upon Mona as nothing else could have done. She was amazed, entranced, overwhelmed, intoxicated; and when the seclusion of her own home was reached, the reflective heart-burst of feeling came.

"Father," she whispered, her face aglow, when she was about to give him the usual good-night kiss, "if I could stand before an audience, as that singer did, and thrill them, as she did to-night, I would be willing to lie down and die."

"That's a good speerit," he answered, smiling, his eyes a-twinkle; "but if ye cud do it, ye'd a durn sight better feel ye'd like to live 'n' keep on doin' it, 'n' make 'em pay ye good money, an' pass up flowers on top o' that." Which sage observation perhaps best illustrates the difference between a genius and a philosopher.

That night, sleep was slow in reaching Mona's pillow, and when it came she dreamed that she was standing before a vast throng and suddenly, impressed by the fear of them, sinking into unconsciousness.