"Does he?"
"Oh, yes; did you not know it? But we must not talk, we must work. Let us be very careful."
"You show me how; please to sing it once alone."
She struck the tuning-fork upon the desk, and without the slightest hesitation, flush, or effort, she began. One would not have deemed it an incomplete fragment of score; it resounded in my very brain like perfect harmony, so strangely did my own ear infer the intermediate sounds.
"Oh, how lovely! how exquisite it must be to feel you can do so much!" I exclaimed, as her unfaltering accent thrilled the last amen.
"I seem never to have done anything, as I told you before; it is necessary to do so much. Now sing it alone once all through, and I will correct you as Mr. Davy corrects me."
I complied instantly, feeling her very presence would be instruction, forgetting, or not conscious, how young she was. She corrected me a great deal, though with the utmost simplicity. I was astonished at the depth of her remarks, though too ignorant to conceive that they broke as mere ripples from the soundless deeps of genius. Then we sang together, and she wandered into the soprano part. I was transported; I was eager to retain her good opinion, and took immense pains. But it never struck me all the time that it was strange she should be alone,—apparently alone, I mean. I was too purely happy in her society. She sat as serenely as at the class, and criticised as severely as our master.
"It is getting late," she said at last, "and I think you had better go. Besides, I must go on with my work. If you are so kind as to come and practise with me again, I must work while I sing, as I do when I am alone."
"Oh, why did you not to-day?"
"I thought it would not be polite the first time," answered she, as gravely as a judge; and I never felt so delighted with anything in all my life. I looked up at her eyes, but the lashes were so long I could not see them, for she was looking down.