"Yes; I thought it too much that Mr. Davy should copy all the parts himself for us."
"Does he?"
"Oh, yes; did you not know it? But we must not talk, we must work. Let us be very careful."
"You show me how; please to sing it once alone."
She struck the tuning-fork upon the desk, and without the slightest hesitation, flush, or effort, she began. One would not have deemed it an incomplete fragment of score; it resounded in my very brain like perfect harmony, so strangely did my own ear infer the intermediate sounds.
"Oh, how lovely! how exquisite it must be to feel you can do so much!" I exclaimed, as her unfaltering accent thrilled the last amen.
"I seem never to have done anything, as I told you before; it is necessary to dosomuch. Now sing it alone once all through, and I will correct you as Mr. Davy corrects me."
I complied instantly, feeling her very presence would be instruction, forgetting, or not conscious, how young she was. She corrected me a great deal, though with the utmost simplicity. I was astonished at the depth of her remarks, though too ignorant to conceive that they broke as mere ripples from the soundless deeps of genius. Then we sang together, and she wandered into the soprano part. I was transported; I was eager to retain her good opinion, and took immense pains. But it never struck me all the time that it was strange she should be alone,—apparently alone, I mean. I was toopurely happy in her society. She sat as serenely as at the class, and criticised as severely as our master.
"It is getting late," she said at last, "and I think you had better go. Besides, I must go on with my work. If you are so kind as to come and practise with me again, I must work while I sing, as I do when I am alone."
"Oh, why did you not to-day?"
"I thought it would not be polite the first time," answered she, as gravely as a judge; and I never felt so delighted with anything in all my life. I looked up at her eyes, but the lashes were so long I could not see them, forshewas looking down.
"Will you think me rude if I ask to look at your work?"
"You may look at what I am going to send to the shop."
"Oh, what shop?"
She got out of her chair and moved to the table. There was no smile upon her baby-mouth. She pointed to the articles I had noticed but had not dared to examine. They were, indeed, sights to see, one and all. Such delicate frock-bodies and sprigged caps for infants; such toilet-cushions rich with patterns, like ingrained pearls; such rolls of lace, with running gossamer leaves, or edges fine as the pinked carnations in Davy's garden. There were also collars with broad white leaves and peeping buds, or wreathing embroidery like sea-weed, or blanched moss, or magnified snow, or whatever you can think of as most unlike work. Then there was a central basket, lined with white satin, in which lay six cambric handkerchiefs, with all the folded corners outwards, each corner of which shone as if dead-silvered with the exquisitely wrought crest and motto of an ancient coroneted family.
"Oh, I never did see anything like them!" was all I could get out, after peering into everything till the excelling whiteness pained my sight. "Do tell me where you send them?"
"I used to send them to Madame Varneckel's, in High Street; but she cheated me, and I send them now to the Quaker's, in Albemarle Square."
"You sell them, then?"
"Yes, of course; I should not work else. I do not love it."
"They ought to give you a hundred guineas for those."
"I have a hundred guineas already."
"You have!" I quite startled her by the start I gave. I very nearly said, "Then why do you live up here?" but I felt, in time, that it would be rude.
"Oh! I must get four hundred more, and that will take me two years, or perhaps three, unless my voice comes out like a flower." Here her baby-mouth burst into a smile most radiant,—a rose of light!
"Oh, Miss Benette, everything you say is like one of the German stories,—aMärchen,[9]you know."
"Oh, do you talk German? I love it. I always spoke it till I came to this city."
"What a pity you came!—at least, I should have been very sorry if you had not come; but I mean, I should have thought you would like Germany best."
"So I should, but I could not help coming; I was a baby when I came. Mr. Davy brought me over in his arms, and he was just as old then as I am now."
"How very odd! Mr. Davy never told me he had brought you here."
"Oh, no! he would not tell you all the good things he has done."
"He has done me good,—quite as much good as he can have done to you; but I should so like to hear all about it."
"You must not stay,—youshallgo," she answered, with her grave sweetness of voice and manner; "and if you are not in time to-day, we shall never practise again. I shall be very sorry, for I like to sing with you."
I was not in time, and I got the nearest thing to a scolding from my mother, and a long reproof from Clo. She questioned me as to where I had been, and I was obliged to answer. The locality did not satisfy her; she said it was a low neighborhood, and one in which I might catch all sorts of diseases. I persisted that it was as high and dry as we were, and possessed an advantage over us in that it had better air, being, as it was, all but out in the fields. My mother was rather puzzled about the whole matter, but she declared her confidence in me, and I was contented, as she ever contents me. I was very grateful to her, and assured them all how superior was Miss Benette to all the members of the class. I also supplicated Millicent to accompany me the next time I should be allowed to go, that she might see the beautiful work.
"I cannot go, my dear Charles," she returned. "If this young lady be what you yourself make her out to be, it would be taking a great liberty; and besides, she could not want me,—I do not sing in the class."
But she looked very much as if she wished she did.
"I just wish you would ask Mr. Davy about her, that's all."
When I went to the class next time I was very eager to catch Mr. Davy, that I might explain to him where I had been, for I did not like acting without his cognizance. However, he was already down below when I arrived. My fair companions were both in their places, but, to my astonishment, Miss Benette took no notice of me. Her sweet face was as grave as it was before I caught from under those long lashes the azure light upon my own for the first time. Certain that she did not mean to offend me, I got on very well though, and Davy was very much pleased with our success.
Little Laura looked very pale; her hair was out of its curl, and altogether she had an appearance as if she had been dragged through a river, lost and forlorn, and scarcely sensible. She sang languidly, but Miss Benette's clinging tones would not suffer me to be aware of any except hers and my own.
Davy taught us something about Gregorian chants, and gave us a few to practise, besides a new but extremely simple service of his own. "He wrote that for us, I suppose," I ventured; and Clara nodded seriously, but made no assent in words. Afterwards she seemed to remember me again as her ally; for as Davy wished us his adieu in his wonted free "Good-night!" she spoke to me of her own accord.
"I think it was all the better that we practised."
"Oh, was it not? Suppose we practise again."
"I should like it, if you will come at the same time, and not stay longer; and Laura can come too, can she not?"
I did not exactly like this idea, but I could not contradict the calm, mellow voice.
"Oh, if she will practise."
"Of course she will practise if she comes on purpose."
"I don't care about coming!" exclaimed the child, in a low, fretful voice. "I know I sha'n't get out, either."
"Yes, you shall; I will coax your papa. Look, Laura! there he is, waiting for you."
The child ran off instantly, with an air of fear over all her fatigue, and I felt sure she was not treated like a child; but I said nothing about it then.
"Sir," said I to Mr. Davy, "pray walk a little way, for I want to tell you something. My mother particularly requests that you will go to our house to sup with us this evening."
"I will accept her kindness with the greatest pleasure, as I happen to be less engaged than usual."
Davy never bent his duty to his pleasure,—rather the reverse.
"I went to practise with Miss Benette the day before yesterday."
"So she told me."
"She told you herself?"
"Yes, when she came to my house for her lesson last afternoon. I was very glad to hear it, because such singing as hers will improve yours. But I should like to tell your mother how she is connected with me."
"How was it, sir?"
"Oh! I shall make a long story for her; but enough for you that her father was very good to me when I wasan orphan boy and begged my way through Germany. He taught me all that I now teach you; and when he died, he asked me to take care of his baby and his lessons. She was only born that he might see her, and die."
"Oh, sir, how strange! Poor man! he must have been very sorry."
"He was not sorry to go, for he loved his wife, and she went first."
"Oh, that was Miss Benette's mamma?"
"Yes, her lovely mamma."
"Of course she was lovely. If you please, sir, tell me about her too." But Davy reserved his tale until we were at home.
My mother fully expected him, it was evident; for upon the table, besides the plain but perfectly ordered meal we always enjoyed at about nine o'clock, stood the supernumerary illustrations—in honor of a guest—of boiled custards, puff pastry, and our choicest preserves. My mother, too, was sitting by the fire in a species of state, having her hands void of occupation and her pocket-handkerchief outspread. Millicent and Lydia wore their dahlia-colored poplin frocks,—quite a Sunday costume,—and Clo revealed herself in purple silk, singularly adapted for evening wear, as it looked black by candle-light!
I never sat up to supper except on very select occasions. I knew this would be one, without being told so, and secured the next chair to my darling friend's.
I would that I could recall, in his own expressive language, his exact relation of his own history as told to us that night. It struck us that he should so earnestly acquaint us with every incident,—at least, it surprised us then, but his after connection with ourselves explained it in that future.
No fiction could be more fraught with fascinating personality than his actual life. I pass over his birth in England (and in London), in a dark room over a dull book-shop, in his father's house. That father, from pure breeding and constitutional exclusiveness, had avoided all intercourse with his class, and conserved his social caste by his marriage only. I linger not upon his remembrance of his mother, Sybilla Lenhart,—herself a Jewess, with the most exquisite musical ability,—nor upon her death in her only son's tenth year.
His father's pining melancholy meantime deepened into an abstraction of misery on her loss. The world and its claims lost their hold, and he died insolvent when Lenhart was scarcely twelve.
Then came his relation of romantic wanderings in Southern France and Germany, like a troubadour, or minnesinger, with guitar and song; of his accidental friendships and fancy fraternities, till he became choir-alto at a Lutheran church in the heart of the Eichen-Land. Then came the story of his attachment to the young, sage organist of that very church, who, in a fairy-like adventure, had married a count's youngest daughter, and never dared to disclose his alliance; of her secret existence with him in the topmost room of an old house, where she never dared to look out of the window to the street for fear she should be discovered and carried back,—the etiquette requisite to cover such an abduction being quite alien from my comprehension, by the way, but so Davy assured us she found it necessary to abide; of their one beautiful infant born in the old house, and the curious saintly carving about its wooden cradle; of the young mother, too hastily weaned from luxurious calm to the struggling dream of poverty, or at least uncertain thrift; of her fading, falling into a stealthy sickness,and of the night she lay (a Sunday night) and heard the organ strains swell up and melt into the moonlight from her husband's hand; of Lenhart Davy's presence with her alone that night, unknowing, until the music-peal was over, that her soul had passed to heaven, as it were, in that cloud of music.
But I must just observe that Davy made as light as possible of his own pure and characteristic decision, developed even in boyhood. He passed over, almost without comment, the more than elder brotherly care he must have bestowed on the beautiful infant, and dwelt, as if to divert us from that point, upon the woful cares that had pressed upon his poor friend,—upon his own trouble when the young organist himself, displaced by weakness from his position, made his own end, even as Lenhart's father, an end of sorrow and of love.
Davy, indeed, merely mentioned that he had brought little Clara to England himself, and left her in London with his own mother's sister, whose house he always reckoned his asylum, if not his home. And then he told us of his promise to Clara's father that she should be brought up musically, and that no one should educate her until she should be capacitated to choose her own masters, except Davy, to whom her father had imparted a favorite system of his own.
I remember his saying, in conclusion, to my mother: "You must think it strange, dear madam, that I brought Miss Benette away from London, and alone. I could not remain in London myself, and I have known for years that her voice, in itself, would become to her more than the expected heritage. My aunt taught her only to work. This was my stipulation; and she now not only supports herself by working,—for she is very independent,—but is in possession of a separate fund besides,which is to carry her through a course of complete instruction elsewhere,—perhaps in Italy or Germany."
I saw how much my mother felt impressed by the dignity and self-reliance that so characterized him, but I scarcely expected she would take so warm an interest in hisprotégée. She said she should like to see some of Miss Benette's work; and again I descanted on its beauties and varieties, supported by my hero, who seemed to admire it almost as much as I did.
"Then I may go and practise with Miss Benette?" I said, in conclusion.
"Oh, certainly; and you must ask her to come and see you some evening when Mr. Davy is kind enough to drink tea with us."
"That curious little Laura too," thought I; "they would not likeherso well, I fancy. But though I do dislike her myself, I wish I could find out what they do with her."
I was going to practise the day after the next, and methought I will then discover.
I took a very small pot of honey for Miss Benette; Millicent had begged it for me of Lydia, who was queen-bee of the store-closet. I ran all the way as usual, and was very glad to get in. The same freshness pervaded the staircase; but when I reached the black door, I heard two voices instead of one. I was rather put out. "Laura is there! I shall not like singing with her; it is very tiresome!" I stood still and listened; it was very lovely. How ineffable music must be to the blind! yet oh, to miss that which may be embraced by sight! I knocked, and they did not hear me; again—they both ceased singing, and Laura ran to the door. Instead of being dressed in her old clothes, she perfectly startled me by the change in her costume,—a glittering change, and one from herself; for through it she appeared unearthly, and if not spiritual, something very near it. Large gauze pantaloons, drawn in at the ankles, looked like globes of air about her feet; her white silk slippers were covered with spangles; so also was her frock, and made of an illusive material like clouds; and her white sash, knotted at her side, was edged with silver fringe. Her amber necklace was no more there, but on her arms she had thick silver rings, with little clinking bells attached. She wore her hair, not in those stray ringlets, but drawn into two broad plaits, unfastened by knot or ribbon; but a silver net covered all her head behind, though it met not her foreheadin front, over whose wide, but low expanse, her immense eyes opened themselves like lustrous moons.
"Miss Lemark," cried I, unfeignedly, "what are you going to do in that dress?"
"Come, Master Auchester, do not trouble her; she must be ready for her papa when he calls, so I have dressed her in order that she might practise with us."
"Miss Benette," I answered, "I think it is most extremely pretty, though very queer; and I did not mean to tease her. I wish you would tell me why you put it on, though."
"To dance in," said Laura, composedly. "I am going to dance in 'Scheradez, or the Magic Pumpkin.' It is so pretty! But Miss Benette is so kind to me; she lets me have tea with her the nights I dance."
"But do you live in this house, then?"
"Oh, I wish I did! Oh, Clara, I wish I did live with you!" and she burst into a fit of her tears.
Miss Benette arose and came to her, laying down a piece of muslin she was embroidering. "Do not cry, dear; it will spoil your pretty frock,—besides, Master Auchester has come on purpose to sing, and you detain him."
Laura instantly sat on a chair before the music-stand; her diaphanous skirts stood round her like the petals of a flower, and with the tears yet undried she began to sing, in a clear little voice, as expressionless as her eyes, but as enchanting to the full as her easy, painless movements. It was very pleasurable work now, and Clara corrected us both, she all the while sustaining a pure golden soprano.
"I am tired," suddenly said Laura.
"Then go into the other room and rest a little. Do not ruffle your hair, which I have smoothed so nicely,and be sure not to lie down upon the bed, or you will make those light skirts as flat as pancakes."
"How am I to rest, then?"
"In the great white chair."
"But I don't want to sit still,—I only mean I am tired of singing. I want to dance mypas."
"Then go into the other room all the same; there is no carpet,—it is best."
"I don't like dancing in that room, it is so small."
"It is not smaller than this one. The fact is, you want to dance to Master Auchester."
"Yes, so I do."
"But he came to sing, not to see you."
"I should like to see her dance, though," said I. "Do let her, Miss Benette!"
"If you can stay. But do not begin the whole of that dance, Laura,—only the finale, because there will not be time; and you will besides become too warm, if you dance from the beginning, for the cold air you must meet on your way to the theatre."
Miss Benette's solemn manner had great authority over the child, it was certain. She waited until the elder had put aside the brown table,—"That you may not blow my bits of work about and tread upon them," she remarked. "Shall I sing for you, Laura?"
"Oh, please do, pray do, Miss Benette!" I cried; "it will be so charming."
She began gravely, as in the anthem, but with the same serene and genial perfection, to give the notes of a wild measure, in triple time, though not a waltz.
Laura stood still and gazed upwards until the opening bars had sounded, then she sprang, as it were, into space, and her whole aspect altered. Her cheeks grew flushed as with a fiery impulse; her arms were stretched,as if embracing something more ethereal than her own presence; a suavity, that was almost languor, at the same time took possession of her motions. The figure was full of difficulty, the time rapid, the step absolutely twinkling. I was enraptured; I was lost in this kind of wonder,—"How very strange that any one should call dancing wrong when it is like that! How extraordinary that every one does not think it lovely! How mysterious that no one should talk about her as a very great wonder! She is almost as great a wonder as Miss Benette. I should like to know whether Mr. Davy has seen her dance."
But though I called it dancing, as I supposed I must, it was totally unlike all that I had considered dancing to be. She seemed now suspended in the air, her feet flew out with the spangles like a shower of silver sparks, her arms were flung above her, and the silver bells, as she floated by me without even brushing my coat, clinked with a thrilling monotone against Clara's voice. Again she whirled backwards, and, letting her arms sink down, as if through water or some resisting medium, fell into an attitude that restored the undulating movement to her frame, while her feet again twinkled, and her eyes were raised. "Oh!" I exclaimed, "how lovely you look when you do that!" for the expression struck me suddenly. It was an illumination as from above, beyond the clouds, giving a totally different aspect from any other she had worn. But lost in her maze, she did not, I believe, hear me. She quickened and quickened her footsteps till they merely skimmed the carpet, and, with a slide upon the very air, shook the silver bells as she once more arched her arms and made a deep and spreading reverence. Miss Benette looked up at me and smiled.
"Now you must go; it is your time, and I want to give Laura her tea."
"I have brought you some honey, Miss Benette. Will you eat it with your bread? It is better than bonbons, Miss Laura."
"I did not care for the bonbons; I only thought you would like them. They gave them to me at rehearsal."
"Do you go to rehearsal, then, as well as the singers?"
"I go to rehearsal in the ballet; and when there is no ballet I sing in the chorus."
"But you are so little: do you always dance?"
"I am always to dance now; I did not until this season."
Her voice was dreamy and cold, the flush had already faded; she seemed not speaking with the slightest consciousness.
"Do go, Master Auchester!" and Clara looked at me from her azure eyes as kindly as if she smiled. "Do go, or she will have no tea, and will be very tired. I am so much obliged to you for the sweet yellow honey; I shall keep it in my closet, in that pretty blue jar."
Iwouldhave the blue jar, though Lydia wanted me to take a white one.
"Oh, pray eat the honey, and give me the jar to fill again! I won't stay, don't be afraid, but good-night. Won't you let me shake hands with you, Miss Lemark?" for she still stood apart, like a reed in a sultry day. She looked at me directly. "Good-night, dear!" I was so inexpressibly touched by the tone, or the manner, or the mysterious something—that haunted her dancing—inher, that I added, "Shall I bring you some flowers next class-night?"
"If you please."
"Oh, do go, Master Auchester! I prayed you ten minutes ago."
"I am gone." And so I was; and this time I was not too late for my own tea at home.
There must be something startlingly perfect in that which returns upon the soul with a more absolute impression after its abstraction of our faculties has passed away. So completely had the fascination of those steps sufficed that I forgot the voice of Miss Benette, resounding all the time, and only associated in my recollection the silver monotone of the clinking bells with the lulling undulation, the quivering feet. All night long, when I dreamed, it was so; and when I awoke in the morning (as usual), I thought the evening before, a dream.
I dared not mention Laura to any one except Millicent, but I could not exist without some species of sympathy; and when I had finished all my tasks, I entreated her to go out with me alone. She had some purchases to make, and readily agreed. It was a great treat to me to walk with her at any time. I cannot recollect how I introduced the subject, but I managed to ask somehow, after some preamble, whether my mother thought it wrong to dance in public.
"Of course not," she replied, directly. "Some people are obliged to do so in order to live. They excel in that art as others excel in other arts, and it is a rare gift to possess the faculty to excel in that, as in all other arts."
"So, Millicent, she would not mind my knowing a dance-artist any more than any other artist?"
"Certainly it is the greatest privilege to know true artists; but there are few in the whole world. How few, then, there must be in our little corner of it!"
"You call Mr. Davy an artist, I suppose?"
"I think he pursues art as a student, who, having learned its first principles for himself, is anxious to place others in possession of them before he himself soars into its higher mysteries. So far I call him philanthropist and aspirant, but scarcely an artist yet."
"Was our conductor an artist?"
"Oh! I should think so, no doubt. Why did you ask me about artists, Charles?"
"Oh, I suppose you would not call a little girl an artist if she were as clever as possible. There is a little girl at the class who sits very near me. She is a great favorite of Miss Benette. Such a curious child, Millicent! I could not endure her till yesterday evening. She was there when I went to practise, all ready dressed for the theatre. She looked a most lovely thing,—not like a person at all, but as if she could fly; and she wore such beautiful clothes!"
Millicent was evidently very much surprised.
"She lives with Miss Benette, then, Charles?"
"Oh, no; for I asked her, and she said she wished she did. I should rather think somebody or other is unkind to her, for Miss Benette seems to pity her so much. Well, I was going to tell you, Millicent, she danced! Oh, it was beyond everything! You never saw anything so exquisite. I could hardly watch her about the room; she quite swam, and turned her eyes upward. She looked quite different from what she was at the class."
"I should think so. I have always heard that stage dancing is very fascinating, but I have never seen it, you know; and I do not think mother would like you to see her often, for she considers you too young to go to a theatre at all."
"Why should I be?"
"I don't know all her reasons, but the chief one I should suspect to be, is that it does not close until very late, and that the ballet is the last thing of all in the entertainment."
"Yes, I know the ballet. Laura does dance in the ballet, she told me so. But she danced in the daylight when I saw her, so there could be no harm in it."
"No harm! There is no harm in what is beautiful; but mother likes you to be fresh for everything you do in the daytime, and that cannot be unless you sleep early, no less than well. She asked me the other day whether I did not think you looked very pale the mornings after the classes."
"Oh, what did you say?"
"I said, 'He is always pale, dear mother, but he never looks so refreshed by any sleep as when he comes down those mornings, I think.'"
"Dear Millicent! you are so kind, I shall never forget it. Now do come and call upon Miss Benette."
"My dear Charles, I have never been introduced to her."
"How formal, to be sure! She would be so glad if we went; she would love you directly,—everybody does."
"I do not wish they should, Charles. You must know very well I had better keep away. I do not belong to the class, and if she lives alone, she of course prefers not to be intruded upon by strangers."
"Of course not, generally. I am sure she ought not to live alone. She must be wanting somebody to speak to sometimes."
"You are determined she shall have you, at all events."
"Oh, no! I am nothing to her, I know; but I can sing, so she likes me to go."
"I suppose she is quite a woman, Charles?"
"Oh, yes! she is fourteen."
"My dear Charles, she cannot live alone. She is but a child, then; I thought her so much older than that."
"Oh! did not Mr. Davy say so the other night?"
"I did not notice; I do not think so."
"Oh! he told me the first time I asked him about her."
Millicent laughed again, as we went on, at the idea of her living alone. I still persisted it was a fact.
The next beingournight, after dinner the next day I went to my garden. It was growing latest autumn, but still we had had no frosts. My monthly roses were in full bloom, my fuchsias flower-laden. Then I had a geranium or two, labelled with my name, in the little greenhouse. I gathered as many as I could hold in both my hands, and carried them into the parlor.
"You have some flowers there," said Clo, with condescension.
"It is a pity to gather them when there are so few out," remarked Lydia, without lifting her eyes from her work.
I took no notice of them. Millicent beckoned me out of the parlor.
"I will give you some ribbon, Charles, if you will come to my room."
So she did, and she arranged my flowers so as to infuse into their autumnal aspect the glow of summer, so skilfully she grouped the crimson of the geraniums against the pale roses and purple stocks. I set forth, holding them in my hand. For the first time, I met Davy before I went in. He shook hands, and asked me to come to tea with him on the morrow.
Clara was there alone. She greeted me gravely, and yet I thought she would have smiled, had there not been something to make her grave.
"Miss Benette!" I whispered, but she would not answer.
Davy had just emerged below. We were making rapid progress. I always made way, not only because my ear was true and my voice pure, but because I was sustained by the purest voice and the truest ear in the class. But now the other voices grew able to support themselves, and nothing can be imagined more perfect in its way than the communion of the parts as they exactly balanced each other,—the separate voices toned down and blended into a full effect that extinguished any sensible difference between one and another.
I am very matter of fact, I know; but that is better than to be commonplace,—and not the same thing, though they are often confounded. If the real be the ideal, then is the matter of fact the true. This ghost of an aphorism stalked forth from my brain, whose chambers are unfraught with book-lore as with worldly knowledge; and to lay its phantomship, I am compelled to submit it to paper.
I could not make Clara attend to me until all was over. Then she said to me of her own accord,—
"Little Laura is ill; she caught cold after she danced the other evening, and has been in bed since."
"Will you have these flowers, then? I am afraid they are half faded, though my hand is very cold."
"I will take them to Laura,—she has no flowers."
"I am very sorry; I hope it was not my fault,—I mean, I hope it did not tire her to dance before me first."
"Oh, no! it was her papa's fault for letting her come into the cold air without being well wrapped up. She had a shawl to put on, and a cloak besides, of mine; but her papa gave them to somebody else."
"How dreadfully unkind! Is it her papa who did such a thing?"
"Her own father. But look, Master Auchester, there is Mr. Davy beckoning to you. And I must go,—my nurse is waiting for me."
"So is mine, downstairs. Have you a nurse too?"
"I call her so; she came from Germany to find me, and now I take care of her."
I was very anxious to see how Davy would address his adopted child, who numbered half his years, and I still detained her, hoping that he would join us. I was not mistaken; for Davy, smiling to himself at my obstinate disregard of his salute, stepped up through the intervening forms. "So you would not come down, Charles! I wanted to ask you to come early, as I wish to try your voice with Miss Benette's. Come at least by five o'clock."
He looked at Clara, and I looked at her. Without a smile upon her sweet face (but in the plenitude of that infantine gravity which so enchanted thenotyoungest part of myself), she bowed to him and answered, "If you please, sir. Then I am not to come in the morning?"
"Oh, yes, in the morning also, if you can spare time. You know why I wish to hear you sing together?"
"Yes, sir,—you told me. Good night, Master Auchester, and, sir, to you."
And she ran out, having replaced her black bonnet and long veil. Davy spoke a few words of gratified commendation in reference to our universal progress, and then, as the room was nearly empty, brought me downstairs. I asked him about Laura.
"Oh! she is not dangerously ill."
"But I suppose she may be suffering," I added, in asharp tone, for which I had been reproved times without number at home.
"Why, as to that, we must all instruct ourselves to suffer. I am very sorry for my little pupil. She has had an attack of inflammation, but is only now kept still by weakness, Miss Benette tells me."
"Miss Benette is very good to her, I think."
"Miss Benette is very good to everybody," said Davy, earnestly, with a strange, bright meaning in his accent I looked up at him, but it was too dark to see his expressive face, for now we were in the street.
"She is good to me, but could hardly be so to you, sir. She says you have done everything for her, and do still."
"I try to do my duty by her; but I owe to her more than I can ever repay."
How curious, to be sure! I thought, but I did not say so, there was a preventive hush in his tone and manner.
"I should so like to know what we shall sing to-morrow."
"So you shall,to-morrow; but to-night I scarcely know myself. I will come in with you, that I may obtain your mother's permission to run away with you again,—but not to another festival just yet; I could almost say, 'Would that it were!'"
"I could quite, sir."
"But we must make a musical feast ourselves, you and I."
"Oh, sir! pray let me be a side-dish."
"That you shall be. But here we are."
Supper was spread in our parlor, and my sisters looked a perfect picture of health, comfort, and interest—three beatitudes of domestic existence. Lydiaanswered to the first, Clo to the second (she having fallen asleep in her chair by the charmingly brilliant fire), and dear Millicent, on our entrance, to the third; for she looked half up and glowed, the firelight played upon her brow, but there was a gleam, more like moonlight, upon her lips as she smiled to welcome us. My mother, fresh from a doze, sympathetic with Clo, extended her hand with all her friendliness to Davy, and forced him to sit down and begin upon the plate she had filled, before she would suffer him to speak. It was too tormenting, but so it was, that she thought proper to send me to bed after I had eaten a slice of bread and marmalade, before he had finished eating. I gave Millicent a look into her eyes, however, which I knew she understood, and I therefore kept awake, expecting her after Margareth had put out my candle. My fear was lest my mother, dear creature, should come up first, for I still slept in a corner of her room; but I knew Davy could not leave without my knowing it, as every sound passed into my brain from below. At last I listened for the steps, for which I was always obliged to listen, soft as her touch and gentle eyes, and I felt Millicent enter all in the dark.
"Well, Charles!" she began, as she put aside my curtain and leaned against my mattress, "it is another treat for you, though not so great a one as your first glory, and you will have to sustain your own credit rather more specially. Do you know the Priory, on the Lawborough Road, not a great way from Mr. Hargreave's factory?"
"Yes, I know it; what of that?"
"The Redferns live there, and the young ladies are Mr. Davy's pupils."
"Not at the class, I suppose?"
"No; but Mr. Davy gives them singing lessons, and he says they are rather clever, though perhaps nottooreally musical. They are very fond of anything new; and now they intend to give a large musical party, as they have been present at one during a stay they made in London lately. It is to be a very select party; some amateur performers are expected, and Mr. Davy is going to sing professionally. Not only so, the young ladies' pianoforte master will be present, and most likely a truly great player, Charles, an artist,—the violinist Santonio."
"Was he at the festival?"
"Oh, no! Mr. Davy says they have written to him to come from London. But now I must explainyourpart. Mr. Davy was requested to bring a vocal quartet from his class, as none of the guests can sing in parts. He is to take Miss Benette as a soprano, for he says her soprano is as superior as her lower voice."
"So it is."
"And some tenor or other."
"Mr. Newton, I daresay; he leads all the others."
"I think it was. And you, Charles, he wishes to take, for he says your alto voice is very beautiful. You will do your best, I know."
"I would doanythingto hear a great violin-player."
And full of the novel notion, I fell asleep much sooner than I did (as a child) when no excitement was before me.
My mother, besides being essentially an unworldly person, had, I think, given up the cherished idea of my becoming a great mercantile character, and even the expectation that I should take kindly to the prospective partnership with Fred; for certainly she allowed me to devote more time to my music tasks with Millicent than to any others. I owe a great deal to that sister of mine, and particularly the early acquaintance I made with intervals, scales, and chords. Already she had taught me to play from figured basses a little, to read elementary books, and to write upon a ruled slate simple studies in harmony.
Hardly conscious who helped me on, I was helped very far indeed. Other musicians, before whom I bow, have been guided in the first toneless symbols and effects of tone by the hand, the voice, the brain of women; but they have generally been famous women. My sister was a quiet girl. Never mind; she had a fame of her own at last. Davy, considering I was in progress, said no more about teaching me himself, and indeed it was unnecessary. I was certainly rather surprised at my mother's permission for me to accompany him to the Redferns', first and chiefly because I had never visited any house she did not frequent herself, and she had never been even introduced to this family, though we had seen them in their large pew at church, and I was rather fond of watching them,—theybeing about our choicest gentry. For all the while I conceived I should be a visitor, and that each of us would be on the same footing.
Had I not been going to accompany Davy, I should have become nervous at the notion of attending a great party met at a fashionable house; but as it was, it did but conceal for me a glorious unknown, and I exulted while I trembled a little at my secret heart.
But I went to my master as he had requested, and he let me into his shell. I smelt again that delicious tea, and it exhilarated me as on the first occasion. Upstairs, in the little room, was Miss Benette. She was dressed as usual, but I thought she had never worn anything yet so becoming as that plain black silk frock. The beautiful china was upon the table, now placed for three; and child as I was, I could not but feel most exquisitely the loveliness of that simplicity which rendered so charming and so convenient the association of three ages so incongruous.
There are few girls of fourteen who are women enough to comport themselves with the inbred dignity that appertains to woman in her highest development, and there are few women who retain the perfume and essence of infancy.Thesewere flung around Clara in every movement, at each smile or glance; andthoseadorned her as with regality,—a regality to which one is born, not with which one has been invested. She did not make tea for Davy, nor did she interfere with his little arrangements; but she sat by me and talked to me spontaneously, while she only spoke when he questioned, or listened while he spoke.
There was perfect serenity upon her face,—yes! just the serenity of a cloudless heaven; and had I been older, I should have whispered to myself that her peaceof soul was all safe, so far as he was concerned. But I did not think about it, though I might naturally have done so, for I was romantic to intensity, even as a boy.
"How is Miss Lemark?" I suddenly inquired, while Davy was in the other little room. I forgot to mention that my surmise was well founded,—hehadno servant.
"She is much better, thank you, or I should not have come here. The flowers look very fresh to-day, and she lies where she can see them."
"When will she get up?"
"I have persuaded her to remain in bed even longer than she needs; for the moment she gets up they will make her dance, and she is not strong enough for that yet."
Davy here returned, and we began to sing. We had a delicious hour. In that small room Clara's voice was no more too powerfully perceptible than is the sunlight in its entrance to a tiny cell,—that glory which itself is the day of heaven. She sang with the most rarefied softness, and I quite realized how infinitely she was my superior in art no less than by nature.
What we chiefly worked upon were glees, single quartet pieces, and an anthem; but last of all, Davy produced two duets for soprano and alto,—one from Purcell, the other from a very old opera, the hundred and something one of the Hamburg Kaiser, which our master had himself copied from a copy.
"Shall you sing with us in all the four-parted pieces, sir?" I ventured to ask during the symphony of this last.
"Yes, certainly; and I shall accompany you both invariably. But of all things do not be afraid, nor troubleyourselves the least about singing in company: nothing is so easy as to sing in a high room like that of the Redferns', and nothing is so difficult as to sing in a small room like this."
"I do not find it so difficult, sir," said Clara, gravely.
"That is because, Miss Benette, you have already had your voice under perfect control for months. You have been accustomed to practise nine hours a day without an instrument, and nothing is so self-supporting as such necessity."
"Yes, sir, it is very good, but not so charming as to sing with your sweet piano."
"Do you really practise nine hours a day, Miss Benette?"
"Yes, Master Auchester, always; and I find it not enough."
"But do you practise without a piano?"
"Yes, it is best for me; but when I come to my lessons and hear the delightful keys, I feel as if music had come out of heaven to talk with me."
"Ah, Miss Benette!" said Davy, with a kind of exultation, "what will it be when you are singinginthe heart of a grand orchestra?"
"I never heard one, sir, you know; but I should think that it was like going into heaven after music and remaining there."
"But were you not at the festival, Miss Benette?"
"Oh, no!"
"How very odd, when I was there!"
Davy looked suddenly at her; but though his quick, bright glance might have startled away her answer, that came as calmly as all her words,—like a breeze awakening from the south.
"I did not desire to go; Mr. Davy had the kindnessto propose I should, but I knew it would make me idle afterwards, and I cannot afford to waste my time. I am growing old."
"Now, Miss Benette, there is our servant or your nurse," for I heard a knock. "Will you let me come to-morrow?"
"Just for half an hour only, because I want to sit with Laura."
"I thank you; thank you!"
"How did you get home last night?" I asked, on the promised meeting. She was sitting at the window, where the light was strongest, for her delicate work was in her hand; and as the beams of a paler sun came in upon her, I thought I had seen something like her somewhere before in a picture as it were framed in a dusky corner, but itself making for its own loveliness a shrine of light. Had I travelled among studios and galleries, I must have been struck by her likeness to those rich-hued but fairest ideals of the sacred schools of painting which have consecrated the old masters as worshippers of the highest in woman; but I had never seen anything of the kind except in cold prints. That strange reminiscence of what we never have really seen, in what we at present behold, appertains to a certain temperament only,—that temperament in which the ideal notion is so definite that all the realities the least approximating thereunto strike as its semblances, and all that it finds beautiful it compares so as to combine with the beautiful itself. I do not suppose I had this consciousness that afternoon, but I perfectly remember saying, before Clara rose to welcome me as she always did, "You look exactly like a picture."
"Do I? But no people in pictures are made at work. Oh, it is very unpicturesque!" and she smiled.
"I am not going to sing, Miss Benette; there is no time in just half an hour."
"Imustpractise, Master Auchester; I cannot afford to lose my half hours and half hours."
"But I want to ask you some questions. Now do answer me, please."
"You shall make long questions, then, and I short answers."
She began to sing her florid exercises, a paper of which lay open upon the desk, in Davy's hand.
"Well, first I want to know why are they unkind to Laura, and what they do to her which is unkind."
"It would not be unkind if Laura were altogether like her father, as she is in some respects, because then she would have no feeling; but she has the feeling of which her mother died."
"That is a longer answer than I expected, but not half enough; I want to know so much more. How pretty your hands are,—so pink!" I remarked admiringly, as I watched the dimples in them, and the infantinely rounded fingers, as they spread so softly amidst the delicate cambric.
"So are yours very pretty hands, Master Auchester, and they are very white too. But never mind the hands now. I should like to tell you about Laura, because if you become a great musician you will perhaps be able to do her a kindness."
"What sort of kindness?"
"Oh, I cannot say, my thoughts do not tell me; but any kindness is great to her. She has a clever father, but he has no more heart than this needle, though he is as sharp and has as clear an eye. He made his poor little wife dance even when she was ill; but that was before I knew Laura. When I came here from Londonwith Mr. Davy, I knew nobody; but one evening I was singing and working while Thoné (that is my nurse) was gone out to buy me food, when I suddenly heard a great crying in the street. I went downstairs and opened the door, and there I found a little girl, with no bonnet upon her head, who wore a gay frock all covered with artificial flowers. My nurse was there too. Thoné can't talk much English, but she said to me, 'Make her speak. I found her sitting down in the gutter, all bathed in tears.'
"Then I said, in my English, 'Do tell me why you were in the streets, pretty one, and why you wear these fine clothes in the mud.'
"'Oh, I cannot dance,' she cried, and sobbed; 'my feet are stiff with standing all this morning, and if I try to begin before those lamps on that slippery floor, I shall tumble down.'
"'You have run away from the theatre,' I said; and then I took her upstairs in my arms (for she was very light and small), and gave her some warm milk. Then, when she was hushed, I said, 'Were you to dance, then? It is very pretty to dance: why were you frightened?'
"'I was so tired. Oh, I wish I could go to my mamma!'
"'I asked her where she was; and she began to shake her head and to tell me her mamma was dead. But in the midst there was a great knocking at the door downstairs. Laura was dreadfully alarmed, and screamed; and while she was screaming, in came a great man, his face all bedecked with paint. I could not speak to him, he would not hear me, nor could we save the child then; for he snatched her up (all on the floor as she was), and carried her downstairs in his arms. He was very big, certainly, and had a fierce look, but did not hurt her; and as I ran after him, and Thoné after me, we saw himput her into a close coach and get in after her, and then they drove away. I was very miserable that night, for I could not do anything for the poor child; but I went the first thing the next morning to the theatre that had been open the evening before. Thoné was with me, and took care of me in that wild place. At last I made out who the little dancing-girl was and where she lived, and then I went to that house. Oh, Master Auchester! I thought my house so still, so happy after it. It was full of noise and smells, and had a look that makes me very low,—a look of discomfort all about. I said I wanted the manager, and half a dozen smart, dirty people would have shown me the way; but I said, 'Only one, if you please.'
"Then some young man conducted me upstairs into a greasy drawing-room. Thoné did not like my staying, but I would stay, although I did not once sit down. The carpet was gay, and there were muslin curtains; but you, Master Auchester, could not have breathed there. I felt ready to cry; but that would not have helped me, so I looked at the sky out of the window till I heard some one coming in. It was the great man. He was selfish-looking and vulgar, but very polite to me, and wanted me to sit upon his sofa. 'No,' I said, 'I am come to speak about the little girl who came to my house last night, and whom I was caring for when you fetched her away. And I want to know why she was so afraid to dance, and so afraid of you?'
"The man looked ready to eat me, but Thoné (who is a sort of gypsy, Master Auchester) kept him down with her grand looks, and he turned off into a laugh,—'I suppose I may do as I please with my own child!'
"'No, sir!' I said, 'not if you are an unnatural father, for in this good land the law will protect her;and if you do not promise to treat her well, I am going to the magistrate about it. I suppose she has no mother; now, I have none myself, and I never see anybody ill-treated who has no mother without trying to get them righted.'
"'You are a fine young lady to talk to me so. Why, you are a child yourself! Who said I was unkind to my Laura? She must get her living, and she can't do better than dance, as her mother danced before her. I will send for her, and you shall hear what she will say for herself this morning.'
"He shouted out upon the landing, and presently the child came down. I was surprised to see that she looked happy, though very tired. I said, 'Are you better to-day?'
"'It was very nice,' she answered, 'and they gave me such pretty flowers!'
"Then we talked a long time. I shall tire you, Master Auchester, if I tell you all; but I found myself not knowing what to do, for though the child had been made to go through a great deal of suffering—almost all dancers must—yet she did so love the art that it was useless to try and coax her out of her services for it. All I could do, then, was to entreat her papa not to be severe with her, if even he was obliged to be strict; and then (for he had told me she danced the night before, the first time in public) I added to herself, 'You must try to deserve the flowers they give you, and dance your very best And if you practise well when you are learning in the mornings, it will become so easy that you will not find it any pain at all, and very little fatigue.'
"Her papa, I could see, was not ill-humored, but very selfish, and would make the most of his clever little daughter; so I would not stay any longer, lest he shouldforget what I had said. He was rather more polite again before I went away, and in a day or two I sent Thoné with a note to Laura, in which I asked her to tea—and, for a wonder, she came. I am tiring you, Master Auchester?"
"Oh! do please, for pity's sake, go on, Miss Benette!"
"Well, when she came with Thoné, she was dressed much as she dresses at the class, and I have not been able yet to persuade her to leave off that ugly necklace. She talked to me a great deal. She was not made to suffer until after her mother's death, for her mother was so tender of her that she would allow no one to touch her but herself. She taught her to dance, though; and little Laura told me so innocently how she used to practise by the side of her mother's sick bed, for she lay ill for many months. She had caught a cold—as Laura did the other night—after a great dance, in which she grew very warm; and at last she died of consumption. She had brought her husband a good deal of money, and he determined to make the most of it as soon as she was dead; for he brought Laura on very fast by teaching her all day, and torturing her too, though I really believe he thought it was necessary."
"Miss Benette!"
"Yes; for such persons as he have not sensations fine enough to let them understand how some can be made to suffer delicately."
"Oh, go on!"
"Well, she was just ready to be brought out in a kind of fairy ballet, in which children are required, the night the theatre opened this season."
"And it was then she ran away?"
"Yes; when she got into the theatre she took fright."
"Did she dance that night, after all?"
"Oh, yes! and she liked it very much, for she is very excitable and very fond of praise. Besides, she has a very bright soul, and she was pleased with the sparkling scenery. As she described it, 'It was all roses, and crystal, and beautiful music going round and round.' She is a sweet little child when you really know her, and as innocent as the two little daughters of the clergyman at St. Anthony's who go every day past hand in hand, with their white foreheads and blue eyes, and whose mamma sleeps by Laura's, in the same churchyard. Well, she came to me several times, and at last I persuaded her papa to let her drink tea with me, and it saves him trouble, so he is very glad she should. It is the end of the season now, so I hope he will give her a real holiday, and she will get quite strong."
"He fetches her, then, to go to the theatre?"
"Yes; it is not any trouble to him, for he calls on another person in this lane, and they all go together."
"Do you know that person?"
"Oh, no! and Laura does not like her. But as Laura is obliged to see a good deal of low people, I like her sometimes to see high people, that her higher nature may not want food."
"I understand. Was that the reason she joined the class?"
"I persuaded her papa to allow her, by assuring him it would improve her voice for singing in the chorus; and now he comes himself, though I rather suspect it is because he likes to know all that is going on in the town."
"She goes home with him, then?"
"Yes. The reason you saw Laura in her dancing-dress was that you might like her. I bade her bring it, and put it on her myself. I did not tell her why, but I wished you to see her too."
"But why did you wish me to like her, Miss Benette?"
"As I told you before,—that you may be kind to her; and also that she might see some one very gentle, I wished her to be here with you."
"Am I gentle, do you consider?"
"I think you are a young gentleman," she answered, with her sweet gravity.
"But I do not see how it could do her good exactly to see gentle persons."
"Do not you? I do; I believe she will never become ungentle by living with ungentle persons, as she does and must, if she once knows what gentle persons are. I may be all wrong, but this is what I believe; and when Laura grows up, I shall find out whether I am right. Oh! it is good to love the beautiful; and if we once really love it, we can surely not do harm."
"Miss Benette!" I exclaimed suddenly,—I really could not help it,—"I think you are an angel."
She raised her blue eyes from the shadowy length of their lashes, and fixed them upon the dim gray autumn heaven, then without a smile; but her bright face shining even with the light of which smiles are born, she replied in the words of Mignon, but with how apart a significance! "I wish I were one!" then going on, "because then I shall be all beautiful without and within me. But yet, no! I would not be an angel, for I could not then sing in our class!"
I laughed out, with the most perfect sympathy in her sentiment; and then she laughed, and looked at me exactly as an infant does in mirthful play.
"Now, Miss Benette, one more question. Mr. Davy told me the other night that you had done him good. What did he mean?"
"I do not think I can tell you what I believe hemeant, because you might mention it to him; and if he did not mean that, he would think me silly, and I would not seem silly to him."
"Now, do pray tell me! Do you suppose I can go home unless you will? You have made me so dreadfully curious. I should not think of telling him you had told me. Now, what did you do for him that made him say so?"
She replied, with an innocence the sister of which I have never seen through all my dreams of woman,—
"Mr. Davy was so condescending as to ask me one day whether I would be his wife,—sometime when I am grown up. And I said, No. I think that was the good I did him."
I shall never forget the peculiar startled sensation that struck through me. I had never entertained such a notion, or any notion of the kind about anybody; and about her it was indeed new, and to me almost an awe.
"The good you did him, Miss Benette!" I cried in such a scared tone that she dropped her work into her lap. "I should have thought it would have done him more good if you had said, Yes."
"You are very kind to think so," she replied, in a tone like a confiding child's to a superior in age,—far from like an elder's to one so young as myself,—"but I know better, Master Auchester. It was the only thing I could do to show my gratitude."
"Were you sorry to say No, Miss Benette?"
"No; very glad and very pleased."
"But it is rather odd. I should have thought you would have liked to say, Yes. You do not love him, then?"
"Oh! yes, I do, well. But I do not wish to belong to him, nor to any one,—only to music now; and besides,I should not have had his love. He wished to marry me that he might take care of me. But when he said so, I answered, 'Sir, I can take care of myself.'"
"But, Miss Benette, how much should one love, and how, then, if one is to marry? For I do not think all people marry for love!"
"You are not old enough to understand, and I am not old enough to tell you," she said sweetly, with her eyes upon her work as usual, "nor do I wish to know. If some people marry not for love, what is that to me? I am not even sorry for them,—not so sorry as I am for those who know not music, and whom music does not know."
"Oh! they are worse off!" I involuntarily exclaimed. "Do you think I am 'known of music,' Miss Benette?"
"I daresay; for you love it, and will serve it. I cannot tell further, I am not wise. Would you like to have your fortune told?"
"Miss Benette! what do you mean? You cannot tell fortunes!"
"But Thoné can. She is a gypsy,—a real gypsy, Master Auchester, though she was naughty, and married out of her tribe."
"What tribe?"
"Hush!" said Clara, whisperingly; "she is in my other room at work, and she would be wroth if she thought I was talking about her."
"But you said she cannot speak English."
"Yes; but she always has a feeling when I am speaking about her. Such people have,—their sympathies are so strong."
Now, it happened we had often talked over gypsies and their pretensions in our house, and various had been the utterances of our circle. Lydia doomed them all asimposters; my mother, who had but an ideal notion of them, considered, as many do, that they somehow pertained to Israel. Clo presumed they were Egyptian, because of their contour and their skill in pottery,—though, by the way, she had never read upon the subject, as she always averred. But Millicent was sufficient for me at once, when she had said one day, "At least they are a distinct race, and possess in an eminent degree the faculty of enforcing faith in the supernatural by the exercise of physical and spiritual gifts that only act upon the marvellous."
I always understood Millicent, whatever she said, and I had often talked with her about them. I rather suspect she believed them in her heart to be Chaldean. I must confess, notwithstanding, that I was rather nervous when Miss Benette announced, with such child-like assurance, her intuitive credence in their especial ability to discern and decipher destiny.
I said, "Do you think she can, then?"
"Perhaps it is vulgar to say 'tell fortunes,' but what I mean is, that she could tell, by casting her eyes over you, and looking into your eyes, and examining your brow, what kind of life you are most fit for, and what you would make out of it."
"Oh, how I should like her to tell me!"
"She shall, then, if she may come in. But your half-hour has passed."
"Oh, do just let me stay a little!"
"You shall, of course, if you please, sir; only do not feel obliged."
She arose and walked out of the room, closing the door. I could catch her tones through the wall, and she returned in less than a minute. There was something startling, almost to appall, in the countenance ofthe companion she ushered, coming close behind her. I can say that that countenance was all eye,—a vivid and burning intelligence concentred in orbs whose darkness was really light, flashing from thence over every feature. Thoné was neither a gaunt nor a great woman, though tall; her hands were beautifully small and slender, and though she was as brunette as her eye was dark, she was clear as that darkness was itself light. The white cap she wore contrasted strangely with that rich hue, like sun-gilt bronze. She was old, but modelled like a statue, and her lips were keen, severe, and something scornful. It was amazing to me to see how easily Miss Benette looked and worked before this prodigy; I was speechless. Thoné took my hand in hers, and feeling I trembled, she said some quick words to Clara in a species of Low German, whose accent I could not understand, and Clara replied in the same. I would have withdrawn my hand, for I was beginning to fear something dreadful in the way of an oracle, but Thoné led me with irrepressible authority to the window. Once there, she fastened upon me an almost feeling glance, and having scanned me a while, drew out all my fingers one by one with a pressure that cracked every sinew of my hand and arm. At last she looked into my palm, but made no muttering, and did not appear trying to make out anything but the streaks and texture of the skin. It could not have been ten minutes that had passed when she let fall my hand, and addressing Clara in a curt, still manner, without smile or comment, uttered in a voice whose echoes haunt me still,—for the words were rare as music,—"Tonkunst und Arzenei."[10]
I knew enough of German to interpret these, at allevents, and as I stood they passed into my being by conviction, they being indeed truth.
Clara approached me. "Are you satisfied? Musicismedicine, though, I think; do not you?"