* This is a definition of the Heaven-born fiddler by Pate Bailey, a
gypsy tinker and celestial violinist. Being asked for a test of
proficiency on that instrument, he replied that no man is a fiddler
"till he can gar himsel greet wi a feddle."
"Great Orpheus played so well he moved Old Nick,
But these move nothing but their fiddlestick."*
* See how unjust satire is! Don't they move their finger-nails?
But he could make you laugh and crow with his fiddle, and could make
you jump up, aetat. 60, and snap your fingers at old age and
propriety, and propose a jig to two bishops and one master of the
rolls, and, they declining, pity them without a shade of anger, and
substitute three chairs; then sit unabashed and smiling at the past;
and the next minute he could make you cry, or near it. In a word he
could evoke the soul of that wonderful wooden shell, and bid it
discourse with the souls and hearts of his hearers.
Meantime Lucy Fountain's face would have interested a subtle student
of her sex.
Her sensibility to music was great, and the feeling strains stole into
her nature, and stirred the treasures of the deep to the surface. Eve,
a keen if not a profound observer, was struck by the rising beauty of
this countenance, over which so many moods chased one another. She
said to herself: "Well, David is right, after all; she is a lovely
girl. Her features are nothing out of the way. Her nose is neither one
thing nor the other, but her expression is beautiful.
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