Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

mother's were like the nightingale and the lark. Still it was a difficult performance, and Signor Angelo was not quite satisfied.

Lady Adelaide, with her fine compass of voice and well practised execution, readily accommodated herself to his corrections, but with his younger pupil (for in that light the mother and daughter were considered on this occasion by the talented artist) he had more difficulty, or perhaps, as the most promising pupil, with her, he took more pains.

He would not allow the slightest tone of incorrectness to pass unnoticed, not even the most imperceptible error.

It was a compliment in reality, but one which Aline, accustomed to a more indulgent or less fastidious instructress, was not able rightly to appreciate.

Lady Adelaide was at length called away on business, and leftthem together.

For the better mastering of a passage, Signor Angelo sung it over and over again, and ex

[blocks in formation]

plained it with assiduity. And Aline, with the same sweetness and patience, repeated it often. Angelo had from his earliest youth been accustomed to the unsparing toil and industry of a professional study, and in the ardour and interest gradually stealing upon him for his present occupation, he was forgetful that it might not be so agreeable to the object of his pains.

"Ancora, ancora!" he had again and again repeated, and Aline began to feel at length quite provoked, for the awe of her mother's presence removed, she felt less subdued, and she was really tired. The twenty-first time the passage had been gone over, and then she paused.

"I am so tired, Signor Angelo," she murmured, and her eyes filled with tears though she tried to smile. "If you please—no more this morning. I cannot," she added with a slight tone of petulance in her voice, "I cannot sing it any more now," and she sank on a chair close by, which Lady Adelaide had before occupied. The young master had, of course,

been seated at the piano-she alone had stood that long, long hour and a half, and her tall, delicate form was almost exhausted, a fact, which in his absorption, and eagerness in his pursuit, seemed to have escaped Signor Angelo's remembrance. But now he started up in a sudden fit of penitent remorse, reproached himself with his forgetfulness, overwhelmed her with the most earnest, anxious apologies, and supplications for forgiveness, seized Lady Adelaide's fan, which lay on the instrument, for the weather was sultry, and fanned her heated brow; he even ended by taking her hand-that peculiarly beautifully formed hand with its taper, almond nails, on which his eyes had often fixed whilst she patiently turned the leaves of the song. Yes, in his earnestness, he even took one of those little hands and pressed it in his own, yet all this with such gentle respect, such freedom from all familiarity, the action flowing so spontaneously, as it were, from the natural warmth of his heart, that the greatest prude could

scarcely have frowned, far less the artless Aline, who only smiled through the tears which pique had at first drawn forth, and gratitude now retained.

"Oh no!" she said, "I am not so very tired. I was only beginning to be so-and Madame C. has spoilt me, for I am rather idly inclined; but I will practise this passage very diligently and I hope by the next time we sing it together, I shall not be so stupid."

86

Stupid! ah Signorina!" exclaimed the Italian. A servant entered at this moment, sent by Lady Adelaide to say that her ladyship was sorry to have been interrupted, but that as she was unavoidably prevented from returning to the music room, she would not detain Signor Angelo any longer. So Aline's lesson was at an end-a lesson in which who knows but that the seeds of other knowledge than that of music had beens own?

CHAPTER VI.

"My mind misgives,

Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,

Shall bitterly begin

With this night's revels."

ROMEO AND JULIET.

ALINE Seyton was henceforth a constant assistant at the rehearsals preceding the fête in prospect.

The difficulties of the trio were thoroughly vanquished, amateurs and professors astonished and delighted, with the new addition to their corps, and praise and flattery abundantly lavished upon the young débutante.

« ZurückWeiter »