Daphine A Novel Author:Rita General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1888 Original Publisher: J.B.Lippincott Co. Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you ... more »can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER II. " It is a genuine Stradiuarius, not a doubt of it. What splendid preservation, too ! Sixty ducats, you say ?" " Si, signer, and cheap it is, too, at the price. Only that I am tired of having it here so long, -- ten years in that case there, if a day, -- I could not let it go for that. But times are bad, and an offer is an offer." I was in an instrument-dealer's shop, -- a dusky, dirty place, as I saw when the bright morning sunshine streamed in through the open doorway and lit up the curious articles which were crowded into every corner, and hung on nails, and peeped through broken cupboards, and were now all thick with dust and in various stages of spoliation from long neglect and disuse. A man held me in his hands and turned me carefully from side to side. " How they got that exquisite finish, that perfect completeness -- " he murmured, "it is wonderful. The varnish is as good as when it was first put on. And yet this is a hundred years old, if a day." " I have another violin here, -- a Guarnerius," said the voice of the dealer. " It is just as fine, -- finer, I often think. If the signer needs it for public use, he will find the larger instrument best. The tone is more sonorous, and carries farther." I was laid down, and the other violin passed into the hands that had so lately held me. " Odd that a man who studied in the factory of Antonio Stradiuari should not have copied him more exactly," said the stranger, giving my maker his local name. " No, I don't like this; the build is slovenly; there is that same peculiarity, too, -- the f holes ...« less