As they sat down to table, her husband joined them, likewise
in a very fretful humor ; which he was beginning to display on
many little things, when the landlord entered to announce a
player on the harp. " You will certainly," he said, " find pleas-
ure in the music and the songs of this man : no one who hears
him can forbear to admire him and bestow something on him.**



116 MEISTER'S APPBENTICESHIP.
•*Let him go about his business," said Melina; "I am any-
thing but in a trim for hearing fiddlers, and we have singers con-
stantly among ourselves disposed to gain a little by their talent."
He accompanied these words with a sarcastic side-look at Phi-
lina : she understood his meaning ; and immediately prepared to
punish him, by taking up the cause of the harper. Turning to-
wards Wilhelm, " Shall we not hear the man ?" said she ; " shall
we do nothing to save ourselves from this miserable ennui f "

Melina was going to reply, and the strife would have grown
keener, had not the person it related to at that moment entered.
Wilhelm saluted him, and beckoned him to come near.
