Wunsch and old Fritz and Spanish Johnny celebrated¹ Christmas together, so riotously² that Wunsch was unable to give Thea her lesson the next day. In the middle of the vacation week Thea went to the Kohlers’ through a soft, beautiful snowstorm. The air was a tender blue-gray, like the color on the doves that flew in and out of the white dove-house on the post in the Kohlers’ garden. The sand hills looked dim and sleepy. The tamarisk hedge was full of snow, like a foam³ of blossoms drifted over it. When Thea opened the gate, old Mrs. Kohler was just coming in from the chicken yard, with five fresh eggs in her apron⁴ and a pair of old top-boots on her feet. She called Thea to come and look at a bantam egg, which she held up proudly. Her bantam hens were remiss⁵ in zeal⁶, and she was always delighted when they accomplished⁷ anything. She took Thea into the sitting-room⁸, very warm and smelling of food, and brought her a plateful of little Christmas cakes, made according to old and hallowed formulae, and put them before her while she warmed her feet. Then she went to the door of the kitchen stairs and called: “Herr Wunsch, Herr Wunsch!”
 
Wunsch came down wearing an old wadded jacket, with a velvet⁹ collar. The brown silk was so worn that the wadding stuck out almost everywhere. He avoided Thea’s eyes when he came in, nodded without speaking, and pointed¹⁰ directly to the piano stool. He was not so insistent¹¹ upon the scales as usual, and throughout the little sonata¹² of Mozart’s she was studying, he remained languid and absent-minded. His eyes looked very heavy, and he kept wiping them with one of the new silk handkerchiefs Mrs. Kohler had given him for Christmas. When the lesson was over he did not seem inclined to talk. Thea, loitering on the stool, reached for a tattered¹³ book she had taken off the music-rest when she sat down. It was a very old Leipsic edition of the piano score of Gluck’s “Orpheus.” She turned over the pages curiously¹⁴.
 
“Is it nice?” she asked.
 
“It is the most beautiful opera ever made,” Wunsch declared solemnly. “You know the story, eh? How, when she die, Orpheus went down below for his wife?”
 
“Oh, yes, I know. I didn’t know there was an opera about it, though. Do people sing this now?”
 
“Aber ja! What else? You like to try? See.” He drew her from the stool and sat down at the piano. Turning over the leaves to the third act, he handed the score to Thea. “Listen, I play it through and you get the rhythmus. Eins, zwei, drei, vier.” He played through Orpheus’ lament¹⁵, then pushed back his cuffs¹⁶ with awakening¹⁷ interest and nodded at Thea. “Now, vom blatt, mit mir.”
 
“Ach, ich habe sie verloren,
All’ mein Glück ist nun¹⁸ dahin.”
 
Wunsch sang the aria¹⁹ with much feeling. It was evidently one that was very dear to him.
 
“Noch einmal, alone, yourself.” He played the introductory measures, then nodded at her vehemently²⁰, and she began:—
 
“Ach, ich habe sie verloren.”
 
When she finished, Wunsch nodded again. “Schön,” he muttered as he finished the accompaniment softly. H............