At first her voice trembled slightly; but the tremor only added to its pathos; and as she went on it gained strength and volume. She sang with much feeling and expression. And Alexander was surprised, and pleased and profoundly affected.
“My child, you sing well; I tell you so, who have heard the best singers in the world. Your voice has reached the depths of my heart, Drusilla, and awakened it to a deeper consciousness of its joy in home-coming,” he whispered as she finished her song.
She bowed her head, partly in meek acknowledgment of this praise, and partly to conceal the blush that overspread her cheeks.
“Oh, that little song is very pretty and very appropriate, but it is nothing to what she can do. Sing Casta Diva, my dear,” said Mrs. Lyon.
Drusilla raised an imploring glance to the old lady’s face, but met with no reprieve there.
“Come, my dear! the Casta Diva!” she repeated.
With a deprecating look at Alexander the girl took down another volume of music, and turned to the selections from Norma. The piece chosen by Mrs. Lyon was a great trial to any immature and half-cultivated voice like Drusilla’s, however excellent the quality of that voice might naturally be; and Drusilla knew this, and thence her imploring and deprecating glances.
“You are too exacting, mother. She cannot sing that; I do not think any woman under thirty years old could, unless she had had a very remarkable and precocious experience,” said Alexander, laughing.
“Ay, you say that because you know nothing of the intuitions of genius. You must hear your protégée sing, and you will understand better,” said Mrs. Lyon.
Thus urged on, Drusilla began to sing. Her voice arose tremulously, as at first, like a young bird fluttering out of its nest, but then it soared and swelled, gaining power and volume, until it filled all the air with the music of that wild, impassioned, agonized, terrible invocation and appeal.