'I mean, do you think you could take a man's voice for a woman's at a distance?' [{82}]
'Oh, I see!' Potts exclaimed. 'As it might be, at the telephone?'
'Well—at the telephone, if you like, or anywhere else. Do you think you might?'
'It would depend on the voice, ma'am,' observed Potts, with caution.
'Of course it would,' assented Margaret rather impatiently.
'Well, ma'am, I'll say this, since you ask me. When I was last at home I was mistaken in that way about my own brother, for I heard him calling to me from downstairs, and I took him for my sister Milly.'
'Oh! That's interesting!' Margaret smiled. 'What sort of voice has your brother? How old is he?'
'He's eight-and-twenty, ma'am; and as for his voice, he has a sweet counter-tenor, and sings nicely. He's a song-man at the cathedral, ma'am.'
'Really! How nice! Have you a voice too? Do you sing at all?'
'Oh, no, ma'am!' answered Potts in a deprecating tone. 'One in the family is quite enough!'