“I shall do it!” said Clara.
“Have you heard that famous Hallelujah Chorus, which the Northern soldiers sing?”
“No, Mr. Vance.”
“No? Why, ’tis in honor of John Brown (any relation of Perdita?) You shall hear it.”
And he played the well-known air, now appropriated by the hand-organs. Clara asked for a repetition, that she might remember it.
“Sing me something,” he said.
Clara placed on the reading-frame the song of “Pestal.”
“Not that, Perdita! What possessed you to study that?”
“It suited my mood. Will you not hear it?”
“No!... Yes, Perdita. Pardon my abruptness. But that song was the first I ever heard from lips, O so fair and dear to me!”