"Is Herr Anastase to lead the violins, then? How glorious!" I said to Maria.
"I knew you would say so. What then can go wrong?"
"And now I know what the Chevalier meant when he said, 'I must go find my queen.' You are to be Titania."
"They say so. You shall hear all to-morrow,—I have not thought about it, for when Florimond brought me home, I was thinking of something else."
"He brought you home, then?"
"And told me on the way. But he had to tell me all over again when we came upstairs."
"But about the rehearsals?"
"We shall rehearse here, in this very room, and also with the orchestra at a room in the village where the Chevalier will meet us; for he has his parents staying with him, and they are to know nothing that is to happen."
"I wish I could begin to study it to-night; I am so dreadfully out of voice since I had my violin,—I have never sung at all, indeed, except on Sundays, and then one does not hear one's self sing at all."
"It is of no consequence, for the Chevalier told us your master, Aronach, told him that your voice was like your violin, but that it would not do to tell you so, because you might lose it, and your violin, once gained, you could never lose."