From some ancient Venetian chronicles Mr. Crawford gleaned material that bore upon the life of Stradella, a great musician of the seventeenth century. Out of these fragments he has constructed his story which is rich in its Italian setting. The love of Stradella for a dowerless niece of a pompous, self-sufficient Senator who intended to marry the girl himself, furnishes the key to the difficult situations that crowd one upon another along the course of their experience.