It was nearly time for the concert to begin. People were still coming into the hall, however, and the orchestra had not yet taken its place. There was an expectant air about the audience as if it had come out to hear something unusual. By the time the orchestra had come up and begun to tune its instruments, nearly every seat in the large building was taken. Still the people continued to come and the wide space under the balcony at the rear filled up with those who were compelled to stand.

Behind the curtain in a small room close by the front of the stage, two persons were sitting. They were brother and sister. Other persons were going and coming from other rooms surrounding the stage, and the excitement which always belongs to a concert where several singers and performers make their first public appearance was apparent in the movements and manner of those who were to take part.

The two sitting in the small room, however, were left alone for a little while. The brother was more nervous than the sister. He rose every few moments to look out through a hole in the curtain or to view his appearance, what he could see of it, in a very small mirror which he put back each time into his vest pocket.

"Don't you begin to feel nervous yet, Vi?" The brother put the question after one of his trips to the curtain and the announcement that it was going to be a crowded house.

"No, I can't say that I do very much, Vic," said the sister. She sat quietly in the same place with a violin on her lap and a score of music on a rack near by.

"Well, I don't understand you, Victoria. All last week and this up to six o'clock this evening you have been worrying over our come out to-night. And now you sit there as unconcerned as if you knew you wouldn't forget a note when you know you will have to face all the best musicians in the city."

"I know I shall not forget," replied the sister; "But you will, Victor, if you don't quiet yourself."

"You ought to say, ‘shall.' How often have I corrected your use of the future --"

"Now, Vi, I can stand a good deal but I can't stand being corrected for my grammar to-night. Don't you see what misery I'm in? I've got stage fright the worst kind. I know I can't remember half the words to that first song and I come on number two. And I've got an awful cold and my collar is melted right off of me and my hands tremble so that people will know I am scared to death." He rose again and going to the curtain, looked out, throwing sentences in a subdued voice to the sister.

"My! Ain't there a jam though! Lots of folks standing up under the gallery. There's Doc. Palfrey and his wife and some one else in the front row. They're fearful critical. I know I will, ‘shall,' I mean, go all to pieces if Mrs. Palfrey once fixes me with her cold icicle kind of a smile. Don't you feel it growing chillier already? There's Mr. Clayton and his sister just sitting down in the middle front row of the balcony. Clayton has a good ear for music. Seems to appreciate the violin, don't you think, Vi? Something or other draws him to our house a good deal lately. Wonder if he comes to hear me sing? Say, Vi," the brother left the curtain and came back to his sister. "I'm really afraid I shall go to pieces before that audience. I'm only talking to keep up appearances. Help me out, won't you, Vi, that's a good fellow?"

He laid his hand on his sister's and spoke half in fun and half in earnest but he was really very much excited and the girl replied seriously,

"Victor, if you break down to night or fail to do yourself justice I shall walk out of the hall and feel disgraced as long as I live. Remember father!" It was wonderful to see the effect of this brief, almost sharp, response to the appeal for encouragement. The boy, "young man" he called himself, though he was not yet of age, quivered all over. Then his slight form stiffened, he thrust one hand deep into his pocket and ran the other hand up through a head of hair as black as hair ever is, until it stood up in confusion all over. His whole appearance was so different in a moment from the nervous, dandified, almost flippant young who had whimpered in tones of half jest and earnest that Victoria smiled. She had looked and spoken sternly.

"What are you laughing at?" asked Victor suddenly.

"Better look in your glass and see. But you won't fail, will you, dear?"

"No danger," replied the brother very calmly.

He took out his pocket mirror and arranged his tumbled hair, the sister looking on, amused at the display of a very marked personal vanity.

"There, I'm all right now. See me, Vi! Feel my pulse. Want to look at my tongue? Where's that cough lozenge? Oh, here in my vest pocket. You needn't fear. I won't disgrace you. Dear old father! To think I had almost forgotten him. I'm awful selfish when I'm thinking about myself. Most folks are, don't you think? But I'm all right again now, Vi." And he went back to his place by the curtain and just then some other persons came in and the orchestra opened the evening's program with its overture. The curtain went up and the first player from the performers behind the scenes went on with a piano solo. But the special interest of the audience in this particular concert which occurred not many years ago, was on account of the appearance in public of the twin brother and sister, Victor and Victoria Stanwood. It would take too long to relate all the reasons which led up to the fact of such a crowded and almost excited audience of the best musicians in the city to listen to the musical performance of two persons not twenty years old. Certain very remarkable qualities in both brother and sister, even at this very early age, had given them recognition as artists even before their public appearance. And when Victor at the close of the first number came out after his accompanist and stood before the audience that crowded every corner of the great hall, he faced people who had heard so much about him and expected so much from him that it would not have been surprising if a stouter heart than his had throbbed with fever at the ordeal of satisfying such a gathering, For with his natural talent as a musician he was but an undeveloped inexperienced lad. And in spite of his promise to his sister and the thought of what disgrace would follow failure on this occasion, his knees shook, his tongue seemed to fill his mouth, and his lips were dry. He knew that the accompanist had finished the few notes, instrumental to his song, and he knew that he had failed to make an audible sound on the very first word. It was a crisis in his life, so he magnified the occasion, and if in that brief second he had turned and fled from the stage it is probable that the entire course of the lives of at least two for the persons in this story would have been completely changed.

But his voice came to him on the second note and with the utterance in his ears, instantly all thought of his audience was gone. The player at the piano had halted just a fraction of time, but went right on, and Victor sang out with the voice that God had given him and the people looked and listened. With the exception of that slight failure many a gifted musician in the audience declared to himself as Victor went on that the most beautiful tenor voice heard in years was being heard in that hall that night. And yet, when he finished, the applause was not the kind that brings the performer back, flushed and triumphant. It was hearty and general, but the audience was critical, and that slight error at the beginning marred an otherwise almost perfect rendering. Besides, Victor was on the program for a second number. Evidently the audience intended to give him another trial before it took him into the popular favor.

He finished and went back, and the rest of the singers and players congratulated him.

He did not reply and as soon as it was evident that there was no encore for him he drew his sister back into the room farthest from the stage and while the next singer went on, he burst out in an angry whisper:

"I won't go on again to-night! I disgraced myself and you and father and everybody. Oh, I am a fool! I can't control my miserable nerves! I never was meant for a public singer! I'll find a job to-morrow blacking boots or selling something on the street. Or else I'll get a hand organ and a monkey and travel, and train the monkey to turn the handle when I lose control of myself before an audience."

Victoria looked at him a moment in silence. She was excited for the first time in the evening and angry, but not at Victor. She could not understand why the audience had refused to call Victor back. And she felt indignant to think that such a slight thing as the omission of one note would count with an audience in such an event, as it evidently had.

"Vic," she said, "your singing was perfect. Your voice is a true tenor of unusual quality and those people know it. Disgraced! The people do not know what is right. I will show them! No. You must sing again. You will not be afraid any more! You must sing. Our future depends on winning this audience. Our very living is in the success of to-night."

Victor was silent a moment. He was growing out of the boy into the man and the events of the evening were developing him very rapidly. He walked up and down the little room and said,

"Vi, I wouldn't go through that experience again for all the fame in creation. But-I believe I can win yet. I know I am not afraid any more. Did I look well?" He asked the question with a ludicrous change from his former angry petulance to inquisitive vanity.

Just then the singer who had gone on, finished and was recalled. "Your turn after the next, Victoria. Did I look well?"

"The back of your head was all I could see and it was very becoming and not at all pale," replied his sister. "What do you care how you look, Victor, when your gift lies in your voice?"

"I care a good deal," said Victor who never lost his temper at any remarks on his personal vanity. He took out his mirror, arranged his tie and carefully brushed up his thick black hair from his forehead.

"I must go forward now, Vic," said his sister as the next performer was nearing the end of her song.

"You are not the least nervous?" Victor asked with admiration. Victoria shook her head firmly. "See," she said. She held out her violin at arm's length with the music score between her fingers in such a way that the least possible trembling would have fluttered the paper against the instrument. Victor smiled and kissed her. She dropped the music and turning away, walked up to the entrance, ready to go on.

Her whole soul was in the part now before her. The audience saw come upon the stage a small, quiet figure, a well shaped mouth, undaunted eyes and a spirit of mastery and communion with the instrument that every audience loves to see in a public instrumentalist. The first touch of her bow was imperative. It seemed to say to the violin, "We are very good friends but I am the superior. I must be obeyed." She played with no music before her. Nothing but the audience and its unhesitating sympathy. And she was certain of it from the very first note. She knew that, all the time she was playing. She knew also that she had never played better, with more fire, expression, real genius. And when the last note was played and she had left the stage, the storm of hand clapping and cheers seemed almost like a torrent leaping over the foot lights and sweeping her back behind the scenery.

There was no mistaking the applause. It was a recall. Victoria hesitated a moment urged by the other performers to go on again. But she refused. She was angry with the people for their treatment of Victor. "I tell you I won't go out again until my turn on the program!" She said to the leader of the concert when he begged her to respond to the encore. She drew Victor back behind the scenery and even there the applause followed her. It would die down and then break out with greater volume. As long as it continued, the next singer on the program did not wish to appear. All the musicians gathered about Victoria. Even Victor entreated her to go out, even if only to bow. But Victoria sat immovable and unmoved.

"I will not go until my turn," she said.

"Oughtn't you to say ‘ I shall not go?"' asked Victor.

"Either word is correct this time," said Victoria smiling just a little.

"But it is rude to the audience not even to acknowledge the recall with a bow," suggested the leader of the evening.

"Is it? It was very rude of them not to acknowledge Victor's singing." And Victoria turned her back on every one except Victor whose vanity received a fresh addition from his sister's action.

Finally the audience grew tired of clapping. Perhaps some of the musicians understood well enough why the violinist did not appear. However that may be, the program was taken up without the re-appearance of Victoria and after two or three brief numbers, Victor came on for his second song.

The audience warmly applauded as he came forward. One can never tell just what an audience will do on certain occasions. Evidently they had no grudge against him on account of his sister's obstinacy. He was very confident this time. His eye looked carefully over the house and far back in a seat under the balcony he saw a shabby figure in an old faded overcoat. The face of this figure was the face of one at war with himself. It was discolored and diseased with the passion of drink but the head was noble in its shape and crowned with a splendid mass of blackest hear. It was the sight of that head and the intent, hungry, half-shamed, half-proud look in the countenance that brought back to Victor's thought his sister's words, "Remember father." Yes, there he sat, their father; and the thought of what he was and what he was doing and what success or failure on the part of the twins might mean to him, nerved the boy to do what he did. And the audience was the delighted judge of it. Such a voice! There was much wanting in technique, in phrasing, in handling professionally. All that would come with riper years. But the voice itself was God-given. It filled the souls of all lovers of music with rare delight. This time the encore came swift and unmistakable. The voice had captured the audience. And they yielded. Victor, proud, exultant, vain, came back, bowed, and then stepped back of the scenes. But the audience would not be satisfied. They must hear him again. And after a little he came forward again and sang even better than before and was recalled. There was no question of his triumph. It was complete. And when he had finished at last, even Victoria was satisfied. "It was beautiful. My dear, you did wonderfully. I did not think you could do so well." Victoria petted him until he was in danger of being completely spoiled. Victor took it more quietly than might have been expected. "I saw father back under the balcony, right hand side," he whispered to his sister.

There was no opportunity for brother and sister to talk together much more as the program was drawing to its close now and Victoria's was the last number. The success of Victor roused her to the highest pitch. And when at last she appeared before the audience she felt far beyond even her best self.

But never did a performer with so much at stake for future success in public have to overcome as Victoria had that night. She was well enough aware that her refusal to appear when called upon before was so altogether rude and unusual that she had offended very many of the best musicians in the house, even supposing they understood her reason for not appearing. As she came forward now, it was in perfect silence. The audience was cold and hostile. She thought she was a movement in the back of the hall as if some persons were going out before she began. Then her eyes caught the face of the figure in the shabby overcoat under the balcony. She was not frightened nor dismayed at the silence. And she began, she was nothing and no one in the audience but that one face of the father. As she went on she did not see even that. The passion of her music caught her up and carried her on its wave, while at the same time she seemed capable of directiong the wave which bore her on. It was true she was outplaying herself, and it was also true she was gaining the audience. People leaned forward. Old musical critics listened with nods of approval. A rest in the violin while the piano played on, was broken by a sound of applause that instantly stopped as the violin went on again. But when she finished, she knew she had won the audience. The applause was continuous. The people instead of rising to go, remained seated, and waited for Victoria to come on again. She played a little slumber song without the piano and was encored for that. But she simply bowed in response, refusing to play more. And the concert was ended.

But the results of that evening with its incidents, small as they seem in the telling of them, were the results that Victoria had anticipated in the case of real success before such an audience. To tell what they were, we must follow Victor and his sister home.

The father was waiting a little beyond the stage entrance and as Victor and Victoria came out he joined them, Victoria taking his arm and Victor walking along by his side. They walked thus for half a mile before they turned into a court and opening a small door at the top of a short flight of stone steps entered a plain room which opened into two others with doors at opposite sides of the main or living room.

It is not the purpose of this story to go into details of the previous home life of Victor and his sister. Briefly, the mother had died when they were very young. The father with really rare musical abilities had lost one position after another through a childish lack of business ability as well as through a growing passion for drink, rendering him at times useless for days. At this particular time he was engaged in one of the smaller theatres as one of the orchestra. He still retained a few good pupils. But no one except Victoria could realize the little shifts and devices that the last few years had known in providing for the common wants of the home. The father revered his children. In his worst moments of passion he would remain away from home for shame. The brother ans sister for their part would have reverenced him if their pity and shame had not been far larger feelings. The thought of her father playing his violin in the orchestra of a disreputable amusement hall was poison to the thought of Victoria. The thought that he was doing it because it was necessary to do even that in order that they might all live, was agony to her. Many a night the young girl had waited until the step of her father sounded stumbling up the stone steps and she had seen him come in more than once reeling with exhaustion and the stupor of intoxication and fall across the floor, there to sleep off the effects of his passion while she would creep away and sob herself to sleep with the name of "God" and "mother" mingling in her prayer and speech and dream. Only the growing knowledge of her own musical power gave her courage to live as days grew on into years and she began to be a woman. Victor's voice, too, gave her hope. People, the public, that vague thing "the public," paid money for such voices. Some time they would be able to sell for food and clothes and luxuries the talents God had given them. Then the father should leave his place and the growing disgrace and shame and agony would give way to better, happier times.

As the girl had encouraged the brother to develop his great natural gift, the father also in his better moments knew how to direct the musical studies of the twins. It was not surprising that assisted by nature's own gift to start with and by the very able direction of the father, the two had developed surprising power. One or two of Mr. Stanwood's pupils discovered the secret of rare musical ability in the violin and the voice at the old musician's house. It was not difficult for several parlor musicals at which the twins were invited to take part, to spread their fame as musicians about the city. Then when the large concert was projected by music lovers, the twins were secured, as already known in a smaller way to very many. It was, however, really their first large public appearance. And the occasion was of great importance to Victoria for the opportunity it would probably offer of securing some permanent position for Victor and herself where they could earn enough to support themselves and the father. It was true that all that evening, with all her love for her music and her complete joy in its performance, Victoria had felt running all through her thought as she faced the people, "Will any one here, any manager of entertainment bureau or director, be likely to make me an offer to play anywhere for money?" That may sound very unpoetical and unmusical, but it is what lay in the girl's mind and what she was thinking of all the way home and as she talked over the evening and its triumph with Victor and the father.

"Well, " said Victor, yawning, as he sat with his legs straight out before him and his hands deep in his pockets, "I'm going to bed. It isn't healthy for tenors to sit up late."

He rose and went over and kissed Victoria, patting her on the cheek and saying, "You were my good angel to-night, Vi. If I have an offer to go on the road with a company I won't, or is it I ‘shan't' go, unless you go with me?"

He went over to his father, stooped and kissed his cheek as he had done ever since he was a boy two years old, said good night, and went up stairs. The father timidly spoke to Victoria, "My dear, you must be very tired. It has been a trying evening for you."

"No father," said Victoria, "I am not tired. I am very strong. But it is late and I promised Aura that I would come early in the morning and play for her. So good night, father." She went over and as Victor had done she kissed him on the cheek. The father drew her down to him and returned the caress with unusual affection. Victoria felt it deeply. "Poor old father!" she said as she vent out of the room.

The moment she was gone, her father rose and cautiously shut the doors leading to the upstairs rooms. He then walked very stealthily to a cupboard, took out a glass and with a trembling hand produced a bottle of whisky from his overcoat pocket. He sat down by the dining room table and drank until he was unable to walk across the room to his bed room which was at the other end of the dining room. He tried to lie down on a lounge near the door but fell upon the floor and there Victoria found him when she came down in the morning. It was a common occurrence, but the shame of it grew upon Victoria. She had tried everything to reform, to remove the passion from him. Everything had failed. She was nothing in the way of hope except a complete change of life. She could not endure it much longer. She and Victor had a hurried and meager breakfast and then Victoria, leaving the father to sleep himself sober, when off to see her one great friend Aura and play to her a little while.

Aura was a crippled invalid. It was perhaps because she lacked all the strong, healthy, iron-nerved qualities of Victoria that Victoria had caught the poor bruised, broken body up into her friendship and poured out on her what she never gave any other of her few acquaintances. She lived only a few blocks away, with her aunt who had brought her into the city at the time of the accident which crippled her, and still kept her there for medical treatment. The two girls were the same age. It was Victoria's custom to come in nearly every morning and play a little while. Music to the invalid was rest to tired nerves and aching limbs.

She greeted Victoria this morning with a feeble cry of congratulations.

"See! Aunt has been reading me the account of the concert last night. How proud you must be and Victor too."

"I haven't seen the paper," replied Victoria coloring with real pleasure. "What does it say?"

Aura's aunt came in. "It says you and Victor are the finest, best player and singer in the city. And a good deal more," she said.

"I suppose we shall not hear you very much more?" said Aura, with a wistful glance at the violin case as Victoria placed it in a chair while she laid aside her wraps.

"Why not?" she asked, as she came up to the bed and stroked the invalid's fingers between her own supple hands.

"Because you will play for a large salary now," said Aura simply.

"As if that would make any difference here, Aura. You know I shall always play for you."

"Will you? How good you are. But I shall lose you now, I'm afraid."

Victoria took out the violin, and as she tuned it she said earnestly,

"Aura, I promise you I shall always regard my engagement here with you as sacred. You know you can always send for me at any time and I shall come. And as for the salary-- wait--"

Victoria smiled and at once began to play. The effect on the invalid was instantaneous. She grew quiet and lapsed into a sort of trance. Victoria played for ten minutes. At the end of that time the doctor came and Victoria went away feeling restless and weary herself this morning as if something important were about to happen.

When she reached home she found two men in the dining room which was sitting room, reception room, and parlor as well, talking with Victor. Victor, whose manner betrayed excitement introduced the strangers.

"They have come from the music committee of John King's church to know if I can be engaged to sing there next Sunday or for the winter," said Victor with little attempt to conceal his satisfaction at the offer.

"We regard your brother's voice as remarkable," said the gentlemen. "We know he would prove very acceptable to the church at this time."

Victoria had not thought of a church in connection with Victor's voice. She had thought of him as going into concert work. But the more she thought of it the more she liked it. When the gentlemen finally went away they made an agreement with Victor to sing for the next month in John King's church as solo singer at a price that even Victoria thought was liberal.

Victor was jubilant. "Think of that, Vi! In John King's church too! It's the finest place in the city. The largest audiences and the most cultured people!"

"It's good," said Victoria seriously. She did not say much. Matters were turning out as she hoped. The concert was bearing fruit. She was glad for Victor. Only she wondered is she would have any offer. Victor did not seem to think of her. Then she felt ashamed of her selfishness and tried to enter into Victor's plans and ambitions as he talked over his prospects.

In the afternoon she was sitting alone in the room, Victor and the father both having gone out, when a messenger boy brought a note. She eagerly opened it and read:

To Miss Victoria Stanwood,

Dear Miss Stanwood:

I very much regret my inability to call in person and see you with reference to a possible engagement in the New Concert Company, of which you have doubtless heard and of which I am at present the manager. If you could find it convenient to call at my office, (here followed street and number) at 3 o'clock this afternoon I shall be pleased to see you and arrive at some agreement. I regret that my business will take me out of the city for two months and I am obliged to leave at 4 P. M. If any arrangement is made by which you become a member of the company it is very important that it be made at once and quite necessary to complete the terms before I leave the city. I can explain this to you. Trusting I may have the great pleasure of an interview with you at the designated time. I am very truly,----

Here followed the name of one of the most famous musical directors and managers of Concert Companies in the country.

Victoria looked at the clock. It was half past two already. She would have plenty of time to walk leisurely to the office. But she would go out doors and walk off her excitement by going around a longer way. She put on her hat and cloak and had reached the door when a boy came running up the steps and handed her a not. She opened it hastily. It was written by Aura's aunt and read,

My Dear Victoria:

Since you left us this morning, Aura has had a bad attack like the one you saw tow weeks ago. She calls incessantly for you. Can you come at once and bring your violin? She is partly unconscious but I think the music will quiet her. Hastily,

Mrs. Sutton.

Victoria read the note twice. Then she looked at the other note from the musical manager. It was now nearly a quarter of three. She would have just time to get to the office. But what about Aura? As she hesitated on the steps, Victor and her father turned the corner and came up.

~ end of chapter 1 ~