"You knew I was just dying for want of proper music-lessons."
She could not keep the excited tears out of her eyes.
"Well, well!" her father muttered, leaning with both hands on his stick and scrutinizing the dust. "I wonder if a few music-lessons couldn't be managed."
"A few? I don't want a few: I want months and years! I want to act and sing in grand opera, and—be famous," she said, to herself, but aloud—"make heaps of money."
Her father turned to walk back to the town, saying, calmly:
"Oh, as to acting and singing, that of course—"
She opened her eyes wide. Did he understand? Was he going to relent?
"A young person's wanting to go on the stage and astonish the world with her genius—that's natural enough."
Val began to shrink. She hadn't mentioned genius.