THE NEW SOPRANO.

"Try that chair by the fire, Steve, and comfort your soles on the mantel while I unearth a pair of slippers for you. I've a small mound of them in the closet, built up of the individual gifts of 'grateful pupils.'"

"A cruel waste! You should be a centipede, Hal, instead of that forlorn biped, a bachelor. By the way, speaking of single-blessedness, how it must harrow you, my boy, to witness diurnally the bliss of the bride and bridegroom who sit opposite you here at table! Favor them with Lamb's 'Complaint against Married People,' will you? and send me the bill."

"Bride and bridegroom? Well, that is rich! Have a cigar, deluded youth, while I enlighten you concerning this mellifluous couple. Did you mark the gentleman particularly? You can't take him in at a glance: there's too much of him. Goodwin his name is—Timothy Goodwin: 'Good Timothy' his friends dub him; and the title applies.

"He sat next me at table when I first came to Mrs. Tewksbury's, five years ago, and from the outset he showed a fatherly interest in me—an interest which this quaking stripling of an organist appreciated, I can assure you. Being one of the pillars of St. Luke's—the church I play at, you remember—and an esteemed musical critic withal, his hearty approval of me as a performer was an immense advantage to me.

"You'd hardly suppose such a quiet, imperturbable earthling as he looks to be would rhapsodize over music, would you? It was a surprise to me to find how deeply it moved him. He soon fell into the habit of dropping into my room after tea when he heard me at the piano; and many a time I've caught the great, strong fellow mopping his eyes surreptitiously over affecting passages.

"As I came to know him intimately, and to feel what a staunch, tender-hearted, domestic sort of individual he was, I began to wonder he had never married. One day I asked him in a joking way how a rich man like himself could reconcile it with his conscience to remain a bachelor in America, where there was such a preponderance of unmarried ladies to be supported? He made a wry face, and said he had assumed the maintenance of two spinster step-cousins: wasn't that his part?

"'Or if you think it isn't, Hal, I'll tell you what I'll do,' he added, laughing. 'You marry yourself, and I'll support your wife. Won't that be fair?'

"'Hardly fair for the lady,' I remarked, adding that I should pity the luckless unknown who should thus fail to secure him as her Benedict.

"The idea seemed to amuse him immensely.

"'You kindly insinuate that it would be a benevolence in me to take a wife,' said he with a twinkle in his eye. 'Now, I protest I'm not conceited enough to think that. On the contrary, if a woman should consent to give herself to me, I should consider the benevolence entirely on her side. Can't say I crave such a charity just at present, though,' he added in comic haste, stretching his long arms as if to waive the bequest. 'The fact is, Hal, I've never seen the girl I want. Being hard upon forty, it stands to reason I never shall see her: I fear she died young. May I trouble you to play Beethoven's Funeral March in respect to her memory?'

"And so the subject dropped.

"Timothy was no woman-hater, you understand. Indeed, he admired the whole sex, but in a collective way, as you might admire the Galaxy without preferring any individual star. Young ladies were to him nebulous and mysterious creations, to be reverenced from a distance: he never lavished upon one of them a tithe of the attentions he lavished upon me. I had terrible headaches in those days, and I shall never forget how patiently he would sit making passes over my head till the pain yielded to his touch, as it was sure to do sooner or later. He had more magnetism than any other man I knew. Detesting a dress-coat and white kids as he detested the machinations of the Evil One, he seldom went into society, but he was always ready for lectures and concerts, marching off to the hall with me on his arm as proudly as if I had been the most bewitching damsel. Excepting on Saturday, when I was usually engaged at the choir rehearsal, we were rarely separated of an evening.

"We had gone on in this David-and-Jonathan style perhaps a year, when Miss Sparrow came to St. Luke's as soprano singer. I remember her first appearance in our dim old gallery that last Sunday in Lent—how she seemed to brighten and glorify the place like a ray from heaven. And then her voice! It set you thinking of angels. Moreover, she had the complexion peculiar to that family, and the blue eyes and golden hair. For the life of me, I couldn't help twisting my neck to look at her, at the imminent risk of spoiling my accompaniment.

"That noon Timothy electrified me by appearing in the organ-loft while it still echoed with the benediction, though heretofore he had invariably waited for me after service in the vestibule. I happened just then to be congratulating the new soprano on being in such capital voice that morning, and as the tenor stepped across to shake hands with Timothy, I went on talking with her till she left. When I turned the singers were gone, and there stood my poor David, frowning at a music-rest so savagely that I fancied he must be suffering from a bad headache, and expressed my sympathy.

"'Headache? I haven't a headache,' he growled, stalking down stairs in advance.

"I thought he needn't have felt so enraged if he hadn't, and walked on in dumb dignity. Presently he observed testily that when he honored me with a call in my citadel, it might be polite in me to introduce him to my friends.

"I said I thought he knew the members of the choir—all, at least, but the soprano.

"'Well, she's somebody, I suppose.'

"'I beg your pardon, Timothy,' I cried amazed. It didn't occur to me you'd care to become acquainted with her. I didn't present you because I fancied you'd consider the introduction a bore.'

"'You're sure of that, Hal?' he asked with a sort of fierce eagerness. You haven't any personal motive for not wishing to extend Miss Sparrow's circle of gentlemen friends?'

"I burst out laughing at the absurdity of the idea. It was but a week, remember, since my own introduction to the young lady.

"Timothy drew a long breath, and straightway spent it in questions concerning her:

"I told him all I knew. Her father lived on State street; her mother lived in heaven: sisters she had none, but of little brothers something less than a score, who dogged her steps as persistently as the bass follows the air. To escort her home from rehearsal was to lead the van of an infant squadron, a running accompaniment which the night before had disturbed my mental harmony.

"For, though I did not feel it necessary to enlarge on this point to Timothy, I had conceived a prodigious fancy myself for the sweet little soprano, and should have been glad to learn more of her and less of her fraternal blessings. I afterward discovered why she surrounded herself with these as with a garment. It was from pure compassion for her father. He was a nervous invalid, and the proximity of those boys distracted him. Of course it did: I could enter into the old gentleman's feelings perfectly. It distracted me too. Don't smile, my dear fellow. The prancing young ubiquities were well enough in their way, I'll admit: I only objected to having them in mine.

"All that week my beloved Timothy seemed strangely preoccupied and erratic, capping the climax Saturday evening by fidgeting into my room in his next day's clothes to announce in a shame-faced fashion that, by the way, he believed he'd look in with me that night at rehearsal if agreeable.

"It was not agreeable: it was decidedly otherwise, for it upset a deep-laid scheme of mine. As Fate would have it, by means of sundry extra rehearsals for Easter I had made great progress in my acquaintance with Miss Sparrow during the last few days, and but for Timothy I should have called upon her that evening with the gift of a new ballad, and so, maybe, have had the pleasure of escorting her to St. Luke's, to the routing of the brotherkins.

"Well, I could only toss the roll of music under the sofa as gently as masculine depravity would permit, and conduct my music-greedy friend to the choir-meeting, ostensibly to listen to the chants, though I knew, and he knew, that he had always heretofore objected to hearing them practised.

"Of course I presented him in due form to Miss Sparrow when she arrived. He bowed like a worshipping devotee, and as she moved to her place by the contralto sat down with an exalted expression upon his hat, to the audible amusement of the youthful Sparrows perched on the gallery steps. I glanced at him again during the first soprano solo, and saw him in the same position, his eyes fixed on the singer. Rehearsal over, he coolly walked up to her to proffer his escort. I verily believe she was too startled to decline it. She accepted his arm with a look of blank amazement, and the two set off together through the April slosh, followed by the inevitable juvenile guard. Judging from the bespattered condition of Timothy's overcoat that night, the younglings danced about him like frisky satyrs all the way; but he wore the face of one who has walked with angels far above this mud-ball.

"This indifference to his broadcloth struck me at the time as peculiar, for he has such a constitutional horror of dirt that he really keeps up his muscle by the use of the clothes-brush; still, though I afterward saw him spread his Sunday beans with mustard and his Monday bacon with oil, it was not till late on the latter evening that I came to a just appreciation of his abnormal state. Without knocking he bolted into my room in great agitation.

"'For the love of mercy, Hal, tell me what to do!' he cried, upsetting the piano-stool without perceiving it. 'You're younger than I, and understand the nature of women better.'

"I did, did I? Well, I agreed with him on hearing his story.

"He had just returned from Miss Sparrow's. The young lady hadn't invited him to call: she didn't receive calls now, in fact, on account of her father's rapidly increasing illness, though Timothy was not aware of this. I dare say she thought he had come at my request with the new anthem I had promised to send, and she ran down to the parlor at once, not even stopping to put down the vial of medicine she happened to have in her hand.

"'Good-evening, Mr. Goodwin,' said she—nothing more nor less; and then she stood quietly awaiting his message, very pale and interesting, I've no doubt, from grief and watching.

"I know Timothy's great warm heart swelled with compassion for the afflicted young thing, but even to express his sympathy he would not touch so much as the hem of her garment till she gave him the right, much less would he take her hand.

'"I'm afraid you're hardly prepared for what I'm about to say, Miss Sparrow,' he began, pacing the roam, and probably hurling the words at her like pebbles from a sling. 'I'm aware it isn't customary for a man to declare himself on so short an acquaintance, but I'm a plain, straightforward fellow, desperately in earnest.'

"Fancy the little soprano's wonderment! I seem now to see her 'baby-blue' eyes opening each moment wider and wider.

"'Till now I have never met any woman whom I wished to marry,' Timothy went on, 'and I am forty years old. When at middle age love comes for the first time to a man of my temperament, it is no milk-and-water sentiment, Miss Sparrow. I feel that I could give my life to make you happy. Will you be my wife?'

"'You don't mean to say you charged upon the poor girl in that merciless way?' I broke in, cutting short his narrative.

"He looked aggrieved and sorely puzzled. What had he done amiss? Hadn't he acted the part of a gentleman in avowing his feelings? Wasn't it more honorable to tell her his intentions frankly than it would have been to try to steal her affections unawares?

"'But how did Miss Sparrow take it?'

"'That's what troubles me,' said my wretched friend. 'She didn't take it kindly: she seemed offended, and would have run away if I had not put my hand on the door-knob and begged her to hear me through. I assured her I would not press her for an immediate answer, but she only burst out crying declaring I had no right to say such things to her: she would tell her father. As if I should object to his being told! Indeed, I should have spoken to him myself on the subject this morning had not Dr. Pillsbury said he was too ill to see strangers. I tried to make this plain to Miss Sparrow. I implored her to tell me how I had vexed her, but she broke away from me and rushed out of the room. I cannot understand her conduct. I might have known such a bright young girl couldn't fancy an old fossil like me, but am I so bad a fellow, Hal, that she need feel insulted by my love? I would have walked barefooted over burning coals sooner than have wounded her as I have done.' And so on, and so on, till the cock crew.

"I ventured a second time to hint that he had merely been too precipitate in his wooing, but he shook his head incredulously, and finally went away as mystified as he came.

"At our next meeting the little soprano asked me in a shy, conscious way if my friend were quite well. Had I ever fancied his brain affected? I might have answered with a simple negative: I shall always think a little better of myself, Steve, that then and there, in the full bewitchment of Miss Sparrow's presence, I had manliness enough to speak a good word for Timothy—to tell her that, spite of some eccentricities, he had the finest brain, as well as the warmest heart, of any man of my acquaintance.

"I did not see her again for months, as she withdrew from the choir to devote herself exclusively to her father, whose sufferings were becoming daily more intense. These were not so much from actual pain, as from extreme nervousness that opiates failed to relieve. Dr. Pillsbury often spoke of the case—the doctor was boarding here then—and one day he appealed to Timothy to go with him and try his magnetic power upon the patient. A queer look came over Timothy's face, but he went at once, and was able to soothe the sick man simply by the laying on of hands. After this, while Mr. Sparrow lived, he went often, and comforted him greatly in his last hours, not only by his mesmeric influence, but indirectly as well by keeping those boys out of the way. The money he spent at that time in taking the lads to panoramas and menageries would have constituted him life member of a missionary society.

"You can see the natural result. Having proved a blessed narcotic to the dying father, Timothy ceased to be an irritant to the daughter. An irritant? Timothy couldn't irritate her, and she couldn't irritate Timothy. I've studied them curiously the three years of their married life, only to arrive at this conviction. And you took them for bride and groom? No wonder! since they still feast with unabated relish on connubial sweets. Ah, well! such diet is not for me, my boy: I thrive upon sour grapes."

Penn Shirley.