who so delights all the dreary old spinsters and dowagers who nod over their knitting-needles at the ’Monday Popular’ concerts, and fancy themselves lovers of the ‘classical’ in music.  Sarasate appeals to those who have loved, and thought, and suffered—­those who have climbed the heights of passion and wrung out the depths of pain,—­and therefore the people, taken en masse, as, for instance, in this crowded hall, instinctively respond to his magic touch.  And why?—­Because the greater majority of human beings are full of the deepest and most passionate feelings, not as yet having been ‘educated’ out of them!”

Here the orchestra commenced Liszt’s “Preludes”—­and all conversation ceased.  Afterwards Sarasate came again to bestow upon his eager admirers another saving grace of sound, in the shape of the famous Mendelssohn Concerto, which he performed with such fiery ardor, tenderness, purity of tone, and marvellous execution that many listeners held their breath for sheer amazement and delighted awe.  Anything approaching the beauty of his rendering of the final “Allegro” Alwyn had never heard,—­and indeed it is probable none will ever hear a more poetical, more exquisite singing of thought than this matchless example of Sarasate’s genius and power.  Who would not warm to the brightness and delicacy of those delicious rippling tones, that seemed to leap from the strings alive like sparks of fire—­the dainty, tripping ease of the arpeggi, that float from the bow with the grace of rainbow bubbles blown forth upon the air,—­the brilliant runs, that glide and glitter up and down like chattering brooks sparkling among violets and meadow-sweet,—­the lovely softer notes, that here and there sigh between the varied harmonies with the dreamy passion of lovers who part, only to meet again in a rush of eager joy!—­Alwyn sat absorbed and spellbound; he forgot the passing of time,—­he forgot even the presence of Heliobas,—­he could only listen, and gratefully drink in every drop of sweetness that was so lavishly poured upon him from such a glorious sky of sunlit sound.

Presently, toward the end of the performance, a curious thing happened.  Sarasate had appeared to play the last piece set down for him,—­a composition of his own, entitled “Zigeunerweisen.”  A gypsy song, or medley of gypsy songs, it would be, thought Alwyn, glancing at his programme,—­then, looking towards the artist, who stood with lifted bow like another Prospero, prepared to summon forth the Ariel of music at a touch, he saw that the dark Spanish eyes of the maestro were fixed full upon him, with, as he then fancied, a strange, penetrating smile in their fiery depths.  One instant.. and a weird lament came sobbing from the smitten violin,—­a wildly beautiful despair was wordlessly proclaimed, . . a melody that went straight to the heart and made it ache, and burn, and throb with a rising tumult of unlanguaged passion and desire!  The solemn,