into the bright sunlight of an Italian morning, your thoughts unconsciously wander to the childhood of this great man; to his student life, fraught with petty jealousies and tribulations; to his early manhood, filled to overflowing with sorrow and disappointment. Your sympathy has gone out to the man, and you have quite forgotten the great composer

The municipality has placed a marble slab on the facade of the Grand Hotel de Milan, just beneath the Verdi Suite. Translated it reads: "Giuseppe Verdi has made memorial, for all time, this house in which he was an everwelcome guest and where he expired on January 27, 1901. On the anniversary of such a death the Commune, by unanimous consent of the people, place this tablet, as a token of perpetual honor to the great man who revived, in Italian hearts, with his heavenly harmonies, the desire and hope of a country.”

About a mile from La Scala, facing the Piazza Michael Angelo, stands a magnificent building of brick and stone, covering an acre in extent. It is the Verdi Casa di Repose, or Home of Rest, erected during the last days of the composer's life at a cost of half a million of money. The donor also provided for the perpetual maintenance of the institution in a proper manner. Signor Camillo Boito, brother of the poet and composer, was the architect for this unique building, so simple yet substantial in design. It somewhat resembles mediaeval art, with a large courtyard in the centre, where bloom the choicest flowers in all Italy.

The Home contains a chapel, library, infirmary, museum and large concert hall. There are spacious reception rooms and attractive dormitories, which are provided with all modern conveniences. Musicals are given weekly in the concert hall and on these occasions the best artists are none too choice for the inmates. One hundred peoplesixty men and forty women—are sheltered beneath this hospitable roof and every comfort and pleasure seems to have been provided for those who are less fortunate than the donor.

Near the entrance of the Verdi Museum hangs a picture of her, who in youth was Signora Giuseppina Strepponi, a famous opera singer of her time and who finally became the second wife of Verdi. This picture was doubtless painted during the height of her popularity at La Scala, where the singer did much to further the success of the composer's first operas. It is a very beautiful face which looks down upon you,-a face which you cannot easily forget. Not only was this gifted woman the companion of Verdi's home, but his advisor and friend. Being thoroughly versed in all subjects pertaining to music, she often assisted him in his work and their married life seems to have proved ideal.

Perhaps the most interesting mementos found in the museum are the musical instruments used by Verdi at different periods of his life. The spinet, sold to his father by a priest of Roncole, and used by the composer during his early childhood, reminds us of the lad who shed "fruitful tears of troubled youth" while seeking to find his favorite harmonies on this precious relic.

The second instrument used by the composer,―a piano which the magnanimous Barezzi loaned his protege and which finally became the property of the latter, has also been preserved. This piano was in Verdi's possession when he first entered Milan as a member of Signor Seletti's household. It bears the name of "Fritz," Vienna, and from its keys echoed the airs of the maestro's early operas.

Resting in a remote corner of the museum stands a grand Erard piano, taken from the Palazzo Doria, Genoa, the composer's winter home. Facing this instrument,-which was used during the composing of Aida, Otello and Falstaff, stands a bronze bust of Verdi, executed by Vincenzo Gemito. So lifelike is this work of art that one feels the maestro to be patiently awaiting the coming of one of his countrymen who can fill the place at the grand piano, now vacant for nine years.

In the concert hall of the home are inscribed the names of eight mastermusicians of Italy; but, previous to his death, Verdi refused to have his appear in the list. Since his decease, however, his name has been enrolled with those of his illustrious countrymen and every possible honor paid the venerable old man who, in his eighty-third year, planned and superintended the construction of a building which will long stand as a reminder of his generosity and benevolence.

Near the chapel entrance and just within the walls of the courtyard is a small and unpretentious crypt, protected by an iron gateway. The surrounding walls are beautifully decorated with paintings by Pogliaghi, and a bas-relief by Lomazzi. Within this crypt lie the remains of Giuseppe Verdi, the best representative of the grand art of his country. Beside him rests his second wife, who died a few months prior to his decease. In accordance In accordance with his wish, no imposing monument was to mark the place of his burial. One feels that, like Sir Christopher Wren, "his monument is around him." Nobles and all the illustrious citizens of Milan followed, with bared heads, this great man to his grave. It was

the earnest wish of the Italian Senate that Verdi be interred beside the honored city fathers; but the maestro chose the shadow of his little chapel for his final resting-place. As you stand beside the iron gate and reverently read the simple inscription, the familiar words: "Ah, che la morte ognora,” instantly come to your mind and you seem to feel something of the pathos in the composer's life when he wrote the music for Cammarano's tragic and well-known libretto, Il Trovatore. More than half a century has elapsed since this work was given to the world; yet, notwithstanding the severe censorship of the critics, it still stands the hearty approval of the public and is more successful in filling the coffers of theatre managers than any opera of modern times.

To find a composer equal to Verdi we must go back to Palestrina, Lotti, Corelli, and Scarlattis. Even the brilliant productions of Rossini suffer when comparing them with Verdi's captivating melodies. It is doubtful if Italy or, indeed, the world ever produces another Verdi, so unassuming, yet so powerful, whose manly and noble traits of character were united with such masterly genius.

M

ONEY

was

to

beginning tighten. The wiseacres at Washington had been meddling with the tariff, and the stock men were running up against the wall in all directions. The bankers and financial men of Kansas were put to their wits' ends to keep their heads above the financial deluge which threatened to sweep over the entire country.

Willman Glasen had been compelled to foreclose a mortgage which threw upon his hands one thousand acres of Missouri land, and he had cared to own land across the state line. All the way home he dwelt upon it, and only when he lifted the latch on his gate did he dimly remember that Bertha had been "nagging" him about something. He paused a moment before his deepshaded white house, flecked, in the moonlight, with the shadows of the trees, then gave it up hopelessly.

Bertha, for a motherless girl, he admitted, had managed to care for her home well; so well, in fact, that he came and went like a boarder, free from all responsibility. Of course, she was the pride of his heart, but he never found time to tell her so; there was no time for anything but business.

When he became aware that his feet were upon his side veranda, the sittingroom door flew open, and Bertha

warmly welcomed him to his easy chair beside the softly shaded lamp; then settled again to some frippery she was sewing upon. Just so, she had welcomed since a mere child, save the months she was away to school, but her father looked at her vacantly through the one thousand acres of Missouri land, pulled the Kansas City paper

from his pocket, unlaced his shoes and thrust his tired feet into his waiting slippers. slippers. The hall clock ticked away the evening pleasantly; the warm glow of the lamplight fell over the books. that Bertha had gathered about her, or that he himself had purchased blindly and wrathfully, to get rid of obnoxious book agents who took up his valuable time. The cool, southern wind, laden with the heavy odor of petunias, blew the lace-edged curtains in from the open window.

Bertha had watched her father for some little time; he was busy, as she could see, looking over his day's business. She had for some days past wanted to ask him something, but undecided as to how she was to begin if she did get him alone, she sat halfglancing at the book and looking over her father as if to figure him; to be sure she was right before she should say what she had for some little time wanted to say. As he sat glancing over the paper, Bertha came up to him and placed her hand on her father's shoulder and said:

"You will let me go, father, won't you?"

When he had thrashed his paper in and out she felt sure he was through with the stock market.

"Huh," he exclaimed, settling his eyeglasses afresh and burying his Roman nose in the coming campaign.

The hall clock still ticked and the cry of the whippoorwill came in on the cool wind.

"Gertrude will never forgive me if I disappoint her in being her bridesmaid, and I would like to start Wednesday," Bertha persisted, when she thought he was quite ready to turn the pages.

He dropped his newspaper and absently twiddled his thumbs.

"Who is this 'Gertrude' you want to visit?" he inquired, after studying the wall for some moments.

"Why, father," exclaimed Bertha, impatiently, "the girl you liked so well, who spent most of the summer with us; my room-mate at Hopkins."

"Oh, um."

Again the financial famine and the Missouri land got in the foreground, and Bertha and her affairs retired to the vanishing point on a dim horizon line. What was he going to do with thousands of sheep on his hands, if all the stockmen went into bankruptcy? he'd like to know. Wished he'd never loaned a dollar on sheep, and he'd no use for those politicians in Washington; and, as for loading himself down with Missouri land, he'd get rid of it as

"Father," said Bertha, interrupting his train of thought and fixing anxious, blue eyes upon his face, "you're will ing I should start Wednesday, are you

not?"

"Eh? Oh, who is this young man Gertrude is going to marry?" he inquired, bringing himself back with a jerk of impatience.

He was not listening the next instant when she gave the bridegroom's name, nor when she glowingly described the wedding plans. It was only after some moments that a name caught his ear which brought him. abruptly out of his absorption.

"Frank Concannon. Who is this fellow?" he inquired, his eyes focused strangely upon his daughter's face.

"Son of ex-Governor Concannon of St. Joseph, Missouri," replied Bertha, a trifle proudly, but lowering her eyes as a faint color arose in her cheeks.

He dropped his eyeglasses, sat up straight in his chair and crumbled his newspaper until the all-important stock market fell into the arms of the newest shirtwaist design

woman's page.

on the

"Where in the devil did you meet him?" he demanded.

"At Gertrude's, a year ago. He is

the groomsman," uneasily answered. the girl as she watched the cloud gathering on his face.

"He must be the son of Bert Concannon-the old rascal! So this is the fellow you're going to parade with at a wedding?" he answered roughly and beginning to pace the floor. "Why, I haven't seen or saw old Bert Concannon in fifteen years. Many's the night I've paced the crown of that hill yonder with my Sharp's rifle, watching the country over that state line for that old scamp."

"But it's all over long ago, and we surely ought to let bygones be bygones," pleaded Bertha when her father paused to look at the floor.

"Bygones be bygones," he vociferated, apoplectically, "with a bullet scar on my shoulder which the old hound put there the night we met the Missourians over at Benton? Why, he led the band that came over here and stuffed our ballot boxes, and the night they burned our mill I just missed his head by a fraction with a whole barrel of cold lead."

"I'm glad you missed him," said Bertha, demurely, a mischievous twinkle under her downcast lashes.

"Eh?" he questioned, bringing her in front of him.

At the moment it occurred to the "old stock market horse" that possibly he might some day have a son-in-law, and as he noticed the hot color creeping up to the edge of the girl's wavy hair the truth was forced upon his unwilling, business-laden mind. A son-in-law! Some dapper young man who would take his daughter away from him without a thought of the void he left behind. The full horror of the situation dawned upon his face. Was the man going to be the son of his arch enemy of the days when he was just starting to heap up his vast fortune, in the early days, and whom he hadn't seen these twenty years?

"Because he is a very pleasant man to meet," continued Bertha, bravely.

"Do you mean to say that you have met old Bert himself?" roared her

father over his double chin and ample

contour.

"Yes, father; at Gertrude's," returned the girl, pleasantly.

"Gertrude be hanged!" exploded her father, pacing the floor rapidly.

"No, you're not going; not one step; and you can write this friend Gertrude to that effect!"

"Guess I'll nip that in the bud right now," he muttered, mopping his damp forehead energetically and tramping heavily across the room.

A tear fell slowly down the girl's rounded cheek, but the line of her lips set firmly. The clock ticked with the pace of the uneasy man, whose mind, roving through the trials of pioneer days and the new menace to his domestic peace, presently settled once more upon business and the burden of Missouri land.

"I forgot to tell you that I must catch the 3 o'clock train in the morning over at Springdale, so as to be in Kansas City by eight. You'll get me up as usual?" he questioned, looking at the drooping figure with an uncomfortable expression in his keen, gray eyes, as he suddenly stopped short in his march, faced about and looked at his watch.

He barely waited for the nod which answered him before, kicking off his slippers to join his shoes, he started pell-mell for bed, sowing his garments along his track like a Kansas cyclone. A coat landed on a sofa, a vest on a chair, a collar button, point-end up, dropped neatly to the floor, which would be easily stepped on in the morning rush.

Next morning, after a drive of seven. miles across the country to the Gulf train, he was much annoyed to find that half the population, it seemed, of southern Kansas, Missouri, with at large delegation from Arkansas and the Oklahoma country, had also decided to catch that early train. It was then that he remembered the Priests of Pallas parade advertised so extensively for months past. Seats, being favors, were gallantly allowed only to the ladies. Mr. Glasen, being recog

nized as a prominent citizen, was tendered the luxurious enthronement of the coal box. Here he discoursed with chance acquaintances so vigorously upon the rash tariff meddling at Washington that business worries, his daughter's affairs and the Missouri land faded for a while from his mind.

"Put me up on the best you've got left," he said that evening, throwing his satchel down upon the desk of the hotel, after an encouraging day among the banks and business houses.

The tired clerk eyed, doubtfully for a moment, his prosperous, country magnate personality, and. sizing him up to the fitting title he never failed to bestow upon the patrons of his house, said with accuracy: "Sorry, colonel, but every bloomin' thing is gone."

Just then a fine-looking old man, in a Prince Albert coat, wearing a wide. hat, advanced pompously down the hall.

He stopped beside Colonel Glasen, holding in one hand a satche! and in the other a gold-headed cane, which the colonel eyed critically.

The clerk carefully diagnosed the white hair and fine-cut face, with its goatee and mustache. The white vest and gold-headed cane indicated Washington and some variety of a congressman. If it had been a silk hat, the clerk would have felt sure he was no less than a senator.

"Mighty sorry, governor," he ventured, "but there's nothing left."

"Same at the Dale; same at the Palace; same all ovah the city, suh," returned the stranger, while the clerk smiled complacently as the accents convinced him of his faultless selection of address.

"Nevah saw such a crowd in my life," declared the newcomer, turning to Colonel Glasen.

"We're in for it," laughed back that. worthy, good-naturedly.

"Put you up on the floor, gentlemen," suggested the clerk; "parlor floor at that, with a good pillow and blanket."

"All right; it's a go," agreed the colonel.