“Yes, I began to learn so early that I cannot recollect the time when.”
“I thought you must be musical. Just try this instrument, my dear, that is, if you ’re not too tired.”
“Certainly, if ’t will oblige you.”
Seating herself at the piano, Clara played, from Donizetti’s Lucia, Edgardo’s melodious wail of abandonment and despair, “L’ universo intero e un deserto per me sensa Lucia.”
Mrs. Bernard had opened the door that Vance might hear. At the conclusion he knocked and entered. “Is this the way you rest yourself, young pilgrim?” he asked. “You’re a proficient, I see. You’ve been made to practise four hours a day.”
“Yes, ever since I can remember.”
“So I should think. Now let me hear something in a different vein.”
Clara, while the blood mounted to her forehead, and her whole frame dilated, struck into the “Star-spangled Banner,” playing it with her whole soul, and at the close singing the refrain,
“And the Star-spangled Banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”