find people who want to dance before we have gone through two streets, and we shall be the minstrels. Do you know how to make an oaten pipe? I can soon learn to use it, and if I can draw some sounds from it, it will serve very well as an accompaniment to you."

"Do I know how to make a pipe?" replied Joseph; "you shall see!"

They soon found a fine reed growing at the river's side, and having pierced it carefully, it sounded wonderfully well. A perfect unison was obtained, the rehearsal followed, and then our young people marched off very tranquilly until they reached a small hamlet three miles off, into which they made their entrance to the sound of their instruments, and crying before each door, "Who wishes to dance? Who wishes to dance? Here is the music, the ball is going to begin."

They reached a little square planted with lofty trees, escorted by a troop of children, who followed them, marching, shouting, and clapping their hands. In a short time some joyous couples came to raise the first dust by opening the dance; and before the soil was well trodden, the whole population assembled and made a circle around a rustic ball, got up impromptu, without preparation or delay. After the first waltzes, Joseph put his violin under his arm, and Consuelo, mounting upon her chair, made a speech to the company to prove to them that fasting artists had weak fingers and short breath. Five minutes afterward they had as much as they wished of bread and cheese, beer and cakes. As to the salary, that was soon agreed upon; a collection was to be made, and each was to give what he chose.

After having eaten, they mounted upon a hogshead which had been rolled triumphantly into the middle of the square, and the dance began afresh; but, after the lapse of two hours, they were interrupted by a piece of news which made everybody anxious, and passed from mouth to mouth until it reached the minstrels. The shoemaker of the place, while hurriedly finishing a pair of shoes for an impatient customer, had just stuck his awl into his thumb.

"It is a serious matter, a great misfortune," said an old man, who was leaning against the hogshead which served them as a pedestal. "Gottlieb, the shoemaker, is the organist of our village, and to-morrow is the fête day of our patron saint. Oh, what a grand fête ! what a beautiful fête! There

Our mass especially

is nothing like it for ten leagues round. is a wonder, and people come a great distance to hear it. Gottlieb is a real chapel master; he plays the organ, he makes the children sing, he sings himself; there is nothing he does not do, especially on that day. He is the soul of everything; without him all is lost. And what will the canon say, the canon of St. Stephen's, who comes himself to officiate at the mass, and who is always so well pleased with our music? For he is music mad, the good canon, and it is a great honor for us to see him at our altar, he who hardly ever leaves his benefice, and does not put himself out of his way for a trifle."

"Well!" said Consuelo, "there is one means of arranging all this either my comrade or myself will take charge of the of the direction organ, in a word, of the mass; and if the canon is not satisfied, you shall give us nothing for our pains."

"Oho!" said the old man, "you talk very much at your ease, young man; our mass cannot be played with a violin and a flute. Oh no! it is a serious matter, and you do not understand our scores."

"We will understand them this very evening," said Joseph, affecting an air of disdainful superiority which imposed upon the audience grouped around him.

"Come," said Consuelo, "conduct us to the church; let some one blow the organ, and if you are not satisfied with our style of playing, you shall be at liberty to refuse our aid." "But the score? Gottlieb's masterpiece of arrangement?" "We will go and see Gottlieb, and if he does not declare himself satisfied with us, we renounce our pretensions. Besides, a wound in his finger will not prevent Gottlieb from directing the choir and singing his part."

The elders of the village, who were assembled around them, took counsel together and determined to make the trial. The ball was abandoned; the canon's mass was quite a different amusement, quite another affair from dancing!

Haydn and Consuelo, after playing the organ alternately and singing together and separately, were pronounced to be very passable musicians for want of better. Some mechanics even dared to hint that their playing was preferable to Gottlieb's, and that the fragments of Scarlatti, of Pergolese, and of Bach, which they produced, were at least as fine as the music of Holzbauer, which Gottlieb always stuck to. The curate, who

hastened to listen to them, went so far as to say that the canon would much prefer these airs to those with which they usually regaled him. The sacristan, who was by no means pleased with this opinion, shook his head sorrowfully; and not to make his parishioners discontented, the curate consented that the two virtuosi sent by Heaven should come to an understanding if possible with Gottlieb to accompany the mass.

They proceeded in a body to the shoemaker's house; he was obliged to display his inflamed hand to every one in order that they might see plainly he could not fill his post of organist. The impossibility was only too apparent. Gottlieb had a certain amount of musical capacity, and played the organ passably; but spoiled by the praises of his fellow-citizens, and the somewhat mocking flatteries of the canon, he displayed an inconceivable amount of conceit in his execution and management. He lost temper when they proposed to replace him by two birds of passage; he would have preferred that there had been no fête at all, and that the canon had gone without music, rather than share the honors and triumph. Nevertheless he had to yield the point; he pretended for a long time to search for the different parts, and it was only when the curate threatened to give up the entire choice of the music to the two young artists that he at last found them. Consuelo and Joseph had to prove their acquirements by reading at sight the most difficult passages in that one of the twenty-six masses of Holzbauer which was to be performed next day. This music, although devoid of genius and originality, was at least well written and easy to comprehend, especially for Consuelo, who had surmounted much more difficult trials. The auditors were enraptured, and Gottlieb, who grew more and more out of sorts, declared he had caught fever, and that he was going to bed, delighted that everybody was content.

As soon as the voices and instruments were assembled in the church, our two little chapel masters directed the rehearsal. All went on well. The brewer, the weaver, the schoolmaster, and the baker of the village played the four violins. The children, with their parents, all good-natured, attentive, and phlegmatic artisans and peasants, made up the choir. Joseph had already heard Holzbauer's music at Vienna, where it was in vogue. They set to work, and Consuelo, taking up the air alternately in the different parts, led the choristers so well that they surpassed themselves. There were two solos, which the

son and niece of Gottlieb, his favorite pupils, and the first singers in the parish, were to perform; but the neophytes did not appear, alleging as a reason that they were already sure of their parts.

Joseph and Consuelo went to sup at the parsonage, where an apartment had been prepared for them. The good curate was delighted from his heart, and it was clear that he set great store by the beauty of his mass, in the hopes of thereby pleasing his reverend superior.

Next day all the village was astir. The bells were chiming, and the roads were covered with the faithful from the surrounding country, flocking in to be present at the solemnity. The canon's carriage approached at a slow and majestic pace. The church was decked out in its richest ornaments, and Consuelo was much amused with the self-importance of every one around her. It almost put her in mind of the vanities and rivalries of the theater, only here matters were conducted with more openness, and there was more to occasion laughter than arouse indignation. Half an hour before the mass commenced, the sacristan came in a dreadful state of consternation to disclose a plot of the jealous and perfidious Gottlieb. Having learned that the rehearsal had been excellent, and that the parish was quite enraptured with the newcomers, he had pretended to be very ill, and forbade his son and niece, the two principal performers, to leave his bedside for a moment; so that they must want Gottlieb's presence to set things agoing, as well as the solos, which were the most beautiful morceaux in the mass. The assistants were so discouraged that the precise and bustling sacristan had great difficulty to get them to meet in the church in order to hold a council of war.

Joseph and Consuelo ran to find them, made them repeat over the more intricate passages, sustained the flagging, and gave confidence and courage to all. As for the solos, they quickly arranged to perform them themselves. Consuelo consulted her memory, and recollected a religious solo by Porpora, suitable to the air and words of the part. She wrote it out on her knee, and rehearsed it hastily with Joseph, so as to enable him to accompany her. She also turned to account a fragment of Sebastian Bach which he knew, and which they arranged as they best could to suit the occasion.

The bell tolled for mass while they were yet rehearsing, and almost drowned their voices with its din. When the canon,

clothed in all his robes of state, appeared at the altar, the choir had already commenced, and was getting through a German fugue in very good style. Consuelo was delighted in listening to these good German peasants with their grave faces, their voices in perfect tune, their accurate time, and their earnestness, well sustained because always kept within proper bounds. "See!" said she to Joseph, during a pause, "those are the people to perform this music. If they had the fire which the composer was deficient in, all would go wrong; but they have it not, and his forced and mechanical ideas are repeated as if by mechanism. How does it happen that the illustrious Count Hoditz-Roswald is not here to conduct these machines? He would have taken a world of trouble, been of no use whatever, and remained the best-satisfied person in the world."

The male solo was awaited with much anxiety and some uneasiness. Joseph got well through his part, but when it came to Consuelo's turn, her Italian manner first astonished the audience, then shocked them a little, and at last ended by delighting them. The cantatrice sang in her best style, and her magnificent voice transported Joseph to the seventh heaven.

"I cannot imagine," said he, "that you ever sang better than at this poor village mass to-day- at least with more enthusiasm and delight. This sort of audience sympathizes more than that of a theater. In the mean time, let me see if the canon be satisfied. Ah! the good man seems in a state of placid rapture, and from the way in which every one looks to his countenance for approbation and reward, it is easy to perceive that heaven is the last thing thought of by any present, except yourself, Consuelo! Faith and divine love could alone inspire excellence like yours."

When the two virtuosi left the church after mass was over, the people could scarcely be dissuaded from bearing them off in triumph. The curate presented them to the canon, who was profuse in his eulogiums upon them, and requested to hear Porpora's solo again. But Consuelo, who was surprised, and with good reason, that no one had discovered her female voice, and who feared the canon's eye, excused herself on the plea that the rehearsal and the different parts she sang in the choir had fatigued her. The excuse was overruled, and they found themselves obliged to accept the curate's invitation to breakfast with the canon.