We had hardly joined father and mother in the parlor before a servant appeared with cards for Carlotta, and soon Monte and two others entered.
As she received them across the room I was left to a quiet talk with my parents. We had not told each other a tithe of what we had to tell when I saw the gentlemen rise and accompany Carlotta to the piano. As she seated herself gracefully at the instrument, and gave the warbling keys the petting of a prelude, there was a hush round the room, and I listened eagerly for the first note. She sang a soft Italian air, as full of mellow, rich trillings as a nightingale’s song, and her splendid voice, perfect in its culture, rose and fell with exquisite melody and wondrous expression through the difficult measures. Its floods of glorious music so filled the room that we could not have told where the notes came from but for the throbbing of her Parian throat. When the last sound had died away, like the sobbing of a silver bell, every one gave the rapt applause of silence, till Monte, with his affected drawl, asked for a half dozen screeching arias. When she had sung enough the gentlemen left, and I was hoping that I would have her to myself, when another waiter appeared with more cards, and I found I would only have to play spectator at her levee.
I intended to move over to their hotel, but found, on application at the office, that it was too much crowded, and kept my rooms at the Union. That evening at tea I found Mr. Marshman and lady present, but Miss Finnock had finished and gone to her room. Underneath my plate I found the cigar case and a note. I looked up in some confusion, and found Mrs. Marshman smiling at me, as if she thought our love was a foregone conclusion.
“Sappho is a dear little girl, isn’t she?” she said, as I unfolded the note.
“Very,” I replied laconically, finding, without surprise, that the note was a string of verses, as follows:
“Forgotten the gift, the giver, alas!
Cannot claim the least thought in the day.
With me all the moments and seconds that pass
Bear an image of thee on their way.
This morning, suspenseful, I hung on thy speech,