“Is’t possible? Good heavens! you cannot mean that ’tis her intention to sing no more after she is married?”
“That is why she is marrying Mr. Long—to be saved from the necessity of singing in public; those were her words—‘to be saved.’ Just think of it! Oh, she can never have had any true love for music!”
“You think not? But perhaps she has given all her love to Mr. Long.”
“She confessed to me—at least, she as good as confessed to me—that she intended marrying Mr. Long only because he had promised that she should not be asked to sing in public any more.”
“She cannot care for this elderly lover of hers. Has she tried to make you believe that she does?”
“She professes to be grateful to him for releasing her from her bondage: those were her words also—‘released from her bondage.’ She has always thought of her singing in public as a cruel bondage.”
“Heavens! But why—why?”
“I protest I cannot understand her. She is nervous—I think that she must be strangely nervous. She spends all the day in tears when she is to sing in the evening, and she is like to faint when she walks on the platform. And my sister Polly, who shares her room, told me that on returning from singing, Betsy has wept half the night under the influence of the thought that there were some people who remained untouched by her singing.”
“Singular! Good heavens! where would we be if we all had the same share of sensibility? What, does she think that the plaudits of her audiences are not loud enough or long enough?”