The Monticellonian., 1903-09-03

strain, she yielded to the spell Once more her body swayed to that fantas- tic dance of her childhood, once more her voice rose and fell to that weird sweet song.
 And, as he listened, over the face of the master there came look of rap ture. while with the instinct of the true musician. he accompanied the strange air with all its subtle changes. l Then, as the song ended in breathing of heartbreak and despair, he turned to the child. the tears streaming down his gentle old face
 "Ah, monsieur, monsieurt" he cried, 'it is the voice of an angel!"
 While her child was singing far away across the sea, the mother was dying.
 On a poor bed with scarcely covering l for her wasted body she lay, clasping to her breast little dress, old and worn.
 As her husband bent over her, trying 1 in his rude fashion to adjust the ragged pillow
 "Hark," she whispered. Listen! l | hear my Leah singing" The great auditorium was filled to oyerfiowing. Every seat in the vast room was taken and the boxes were l taxed to their utmost capacity. Never had a prima donna sung to a more cultured and enthusiastic audience. i Time after time, the great house had ! broken out into uncomfortable ap- l plause. and now, as the performance 1 neared it's close, Leah, the gypsy" again appeared, and the people once more settled into the expectant quiet that always accompanies the presence l of a star.
 A perfect type of gypsy beauty was | she; hair the blackness of night. eyes where hid that dangerous blending of love and fire. cheeks through whose l olive the tint of carmine gleamed, lips of the rich red that belongs to all tropi- cal natures.
 moment she stood gazing out over i that vast sea of faces.
 One among them she knew was there watching her with eyes full of question and longing.
 So she had met his gaze for years, all most since the morning he first saw her ! a little child asleep in his fathers li- l brary.
 That she was a gypsy he knew. but where she came from or why to his fathers house he had never learned That father, stern. silent man, had never courted inquiry. About a year before Leah's coming to their home the light Of the place had gone out with the death of an only daughter, the idol of the widowed father. To that lost darling Leah bore more than passing resemblance and because of this like ness, the boy shrewdly guessed that the little girl had come to take the dead childs place.
 Though he loved Leah, to him she had always been an enigma. Together they had grown to manhood and woman hood. and as yet he could not fathom her dual nature.
 Nor could she help him To his ques- tion and pleading she could only say: Some day, when the evil power leaves me, you shall claim me; till then be content, Some day shall be free; the stars have told it. And with freedom will come the memory of that gypsy song my mother taught me. Once it returned and thought heard her call ing me-but it was only fancy-and the song is forgotten"
 And now, as he gaZed longingly at tlhs woman, so strange, yet so beautiful, woman in whose soul two spirits seemed striving for the mastery, one good. the other evil. he noted startled listening expression fit across her face Her eyes looked far beyond She saw not the great audience; unheeded was the orchestral prelude
 Her soul was far away; she saw a gypsy camp, a circle of admiring faces clustered round little child; she heard the thrum, thrum of an old guitar and mothers voice pleading: Again, Leah" Once more, as if led by power other than her will. the 1.-the form swayed to that dance of long ago; once more was heard the song so sad and sweet Again she felt the tender, lov- ing presence of her mother; a gentle peace stole into her heart. her soul seemed filled with rapture and, as her song died away in the last weird notes she turned to her lover, her eyes wet with the sweet due of love, her voice full of the tender notes of surrender, and as he listened he knew that the evil power had left her, that the beau tiful gypsy was his forever.
 Tn the rear seat long after the audi enee had dispersed sat a dark-faced man