They sung it rather coarsely, but correctly and boldly, and with a certain fervor. There were no operatic artifices to remind her of earth; the purity and the harmony struck her full. The great singer and sufferer lifted her clasped hands to God, and the tears flowed fast down her cheeks.
These tears were balm to that poor lacerated soul, tormented by many blows.
“O lacrymarum fons, tenero sacros Ducemtium ortus ex animo, quater Felix, in imo qui scatentem Pectore, te, pia nympha, sensit.”
Rhoda Gale, who hated music like poison, crept up to her, and, infolding her delicately, laid a pair of wet eyes softly on her shoulder.
Vizard now tapped at the door, and was admitted from the music-room. He begged Ina to choose another composition from her book. She marked a service and two anthems, and handed him the volume, but begged they might not be done too soon, one after the other. That would be quite enough for one day, especially if they would be good enough to repeat the hymn of praise to conclude; “for,” said she, “these are things to be digested.”
Soon the boys' pure voices rose again and those poor dead English composers, with prosaic names, found their way again to the great foreign singer's soul.
They sung an anthem, which is now especially despised by those great critics, the organists of the country—“My Song shall be of Mercy and Judgment.”
The Klosking forgave the thinness of the harmony, and many little faults in the vocal execution. The words, no doubt, went far with her, being clearly spoken. She sat meditating, with her moist eyes raised, and her face transfigured, and at the end she murmured to Vizard, with her eyes still raised, “After all, they are great and pious words, and the music has at least this crowning virtue—it means the words.” Then she suddenly turned upon him and said, “There is another person in this house who needs this consolation as much as I do. Why does she not come? But perhaps she is with the musicians.”
“Whom do you mean?”
“Your sister.”