"He is very much in love, and it doesn't agree with him.

He used to be such a pleasant boy, but last winter he went quite mad over Helen Sherwood, Mr.Meredith's cousin, our beauty, you know--I am so sorry she isn't here; you'd be interested in meeting her, I'm sure--and he took up the violin." "It is said that his family took up chloroform at the same time," said the widower.
"His music is a barometer," continued the lady, "and by it the neighborhood nightly observes whether Miss Sherwood has been nice to him or not." "It is always exceedingly plaintive," explained another.
"Except once," rejoined Miss Hinsdale.

"He played jigs when she came home from somewhere or other, in June." "It was Tosti's 'Let Me Die,' the very next evening," remarked the widower.
"Ah," said one of the bachelors, "but his joy was sadder for us than his misery.

Hear him now." "I think he means it for 'What's this dull town to me,'" observed another, with some rancor.

"I would willingly make the town sufficiently exciting for him--" "If there were not an ordinance against the hurling of missiles," finished the widower.
The piano executing the funeral march ceased to execute, discomfited by the persistent and overpowering violin; the banjo and the coster-songs were given over; even the collegians' music was defeated; and the neighborhood was forced to listen to the dauntless fiddle, but not without protest, for there came an indignant, spoken chorus from the quarter whence the college songs had issued: "Ya-a-ay! Wetherford, put it away! _She'll_ come back!" The violin played on.
"We all know each other here, you see, Mr.Harkless," Miss Hinsdale smiled benignantly.
"They didn't bother Mr.Wetherford Swift," said the widower.