"Perhaps, at first, but you would very soon get over that."
"But I have never learnt to sing properly—not with music, I mean. I couldn't sing with a piano; it would put me out."
"I should like you to sing without an accompaniment, as you have been accustomed. God has given you a groat gift, my dear, don't you think He expects you to use it for the benefit of others?"
"Do you think that?" Mavis asked earnestly.
"Certainly I do. The poet Longfellow says that God sent His singers upon earth—"
"'That they might touch the hearts of men,
And bring them back to heaven again.'"
"Those lines recurred to my memory when I heard you sing that beautiful, comforting psalm."
Mavis' face broke into a sudden, radiant smile. In imagination, she heard Miss Dawson's well-remembered voice saying: "You have given me comfort, and reminded me that I am not setting out on a long journey without support from God." She knew the sick girl had referred to the words she had previously sung—
"The Lord is only my support, and He that doth me feed;
How can I then lack anything whereof I stand in need?"
Had God indeed given her a great gift, expecting her to use it for the benefit of others? She had never thought of her voice in that light before; she had sung instinctively, like the bird after which she had been named.