On their way from the temple school, Correliana invited the padre and members of the corps to pay a twilight visit to her garden. Passing through her father’s into her own garden, while yet the upward slant of the sun’s rays reached above the Andean peaks, the party were surprised and startled by the winged hoverings of a cloud of birds of every feather, accompanied with the vocal salutation,—“Well, my goodness gracious, if here ain’t the padre! well, I declare, aha, aha!”—pronounced in variations of tone peculiar to the raven, starling, and parrot. With a confused fluttering, twittering, and tonguester terms of speech, they with encouraged familiarity, alighted wherever a perch was offered. Correliana tried to still their clamors by calling upon the leaders, but only effected a change, all uniting in the word “Musick!” To stay their noisy importunities she beckoned her visitors to be seated, and then under the escort of her feathered choristers she brought forth an instrument of music which Captain Greenwood had presented to her as a parting gift. On opening the case she presented the instrument to the curators of sound, who were known to be excellent pianists. From its resemblance to an accordion they started back with horror, without touching it, which caused the beaming face of Correliana to become overshadowed with disappointment. But the humorous smiles of the others relieved her from sudden apprehension, by suggesting, as the cause of their 338dismay, some foregone amusing event. In explanation, M. Hollydorf described the mechanical affinity of the accordion with the primitive bagpipes, which to the modern musician were a nightmare revelation of the past ages of discord. “Except in its improved capacity of breathing sweet harmony in the hands of an experienced musician, the accordion has the same monotonous drone of its ancestral relative. The source of Signor Pettynose and Herr Lindenhoff’s chagrin had its origin on our voyage hitherward from the annoyance caused by one in the hands of the Tortuga’s cook, which they purchased and threw overboard, and its ghostly resuscitation in your hands has given rise to their expressions of horror. I perceive that the instrument in your hands only bears an outward resemblance to the accordion, and the moment its tones are revealed, I am sure my impressions will be sustained, and the artists will be more enthusiastically retentive in its praise, than they have been in pantomimic rejection.”

While M. Hollydorf was soothing the wounded enthusiasm of Correliana’s affection, the instinctively sensitive curators passed the case, with its instrument, from one to the other, with an expression, kindred in acting translation, to the effect likely to be produced upon two civilized or savage bachelors in the armed disposal of an infant which had been subjected to their inspection, for commendation, by a fond mother. Finding that their former criticisms of Heraclean music had placed them in a dilemma that required vindication, they questioned each other’s ability for extrication. Pettynose having used an accordion in boyhood as a dernier Alma Mater for the nursing of his musical faculties, offered in acknowledgment of his debt of gratitude, with manifest reluctance, the tribute of his experience in expiation of his long neglect and indifference to the rudimentary ties of affection. With the first out-breathings 339of the foundling, as his fingers deftly caressed with familiar touch the well known features, he became conscious that the ties of relationship had been rendered harmonious by a foreign marriage. Reassured by this discovery the petulant asperities of his face vanished; then after a short wandering prelude for thoughtful familiarization, he lapsed into a musical reverie of the past, that gradually caused his disembodiment from the petty assumptions of instinct, leaving his natural spirit of goodness to soar in flight upon the wings of sympathy. In a few moments he became lost to material impressions, other than from the imposed invocation of his fingers, causing the colonnades and courts to become tremulous with the lulling concord of sweet sounds. Correliana with hands reverentially folded over her breast leaned against a vine-wreathed pillar, regarding his face and fingers with her large luminous eyes overshadowed with a misty veil of thoughtful inspiration, as if in search for the mazy source of the mysterious influence that held her entranced within the spell of inwrought concord. But the motor spirit of memory in reviving vision bore upon its talismanic wings the artist far away from self to roam among scenes bright with the revels of childhood in the land of his birth, on the banks of the swift flowing Amaril, whose cascades embowered by the tropical hill groves of Brazil had inspired with the rippling flow of their echoes his love for music. The reveried air of “Home, sweet home” surprised his listeners with a responsive echo, that held them immovable in hushed silence, with a controlling power that banished self. Even the harsh discordant screams of the parrots, calling for the vesper notice of their mistress, were hushed, as if suddenly made aware of their voiced defects; while birds with voices attuned to song in cadenced time swayed silently listening upon their sprayed perches, eying askance as if in search of the new songster from 340whom the sweet notes came. As minutes unheeded winged their way into the current of the past, and the night shades of twilight deepened, stronger grew the charmed bondage that held Correliana and her mother dumb and motionless, bound by the sweet chords of melodious inspiration. But alas, as if to typify the ephemeral pleasures of sense, the spell was rudely broken by the grosser instinctive impressions of the unfortunate padre, who recalled the wandering spirit of Pettynose, by asking, “Can’t you play Yankee Doodle, Jim Crow, God Save the Queen, or something we know?”

The reader has undoubtedly felt the chill of sudden obscurity when the mellow light of a declining summer sun had been intercepted by a thunder gust, and the startling effect produced by the lightning’s dazzling gleam that makes murky darkness palpable after its transient blaze. This gleam the aroused Pettynose darted on the padre, as he thundered with quavering voice: “You soulless son of a paddy! are you so dead to the divine influence of harmony that you could not feel that I was moved by an inspiration beyond the reach of the time-serving twaddle of national humbuggery and the idol worship of sectarian selfishness?”

As the rumbling growl of the enraged musician ceased, the soft expression of Correliana’s face was for a moment lighted with an expression of reproach directed to the reproved and reprover. The padre, whose lack of thoughtful impression had invoked this outburst, turned with flushing winces from face to face, questioning the source of his error, but only met frowns of pitying, or disdainful reproof, which prudently inclined him to silence. Pettynose, restored to his instinctive self, examined the instrument to discover the attachment that had contributed by its aid for the production of sounds of such pure accord, in freedom from the drone of its prototype. Sliding 341back the key-board his vision was introduced to a novel mechanism, bearing but a slight resemblance to that of the accordion, except in formulistic fabrication. In the place of a reed-board of wood it had one of glass. Covering the openings were reeds of bamboo answering to the stops of the keys. Raising the plate he discovered on its under side longitudinal foss? corresponding in length and form with the string attachments of the harp, which it represented in miniature; over this the peculiar strings were strung. The wind in passing from the bellow’s font through the open slots caused an ?olian vibration, which was increased in volume and sweetness of sound by the vibrating accord of the reeds. The spirits of the two curators of sound were highly elated by the discovery of this rare musical waif; at the same time were surprised to learn that it had been the companion of their river voyage; but readily accounted f............