She added: “I feel that I sing better when I have people to listen to me.”
“You find it more sympathetic, do you not?” remarked Cornelia.
“I don't know,” responded the unknown, with a very honest smile. “I like it.”
She was evidently uneducated. “A professional?” whispered Adela to Arabella. She wanted little invitation to exhibit her skill, at all events, for, at a word, the clear, bold, but finely nervous voice, was pealing to a brisker measure, that would have been joyous but for one fall it had, coming unexpectedly, without harshness, and winding up the song in a ringing melancholy.
After a few bars had been sung, Mr. Pericles was seen tapping his forehead perplexedly. The moment it ended, he cried out, in a tone of vexed apology for strange ignorance: “But I know not it? It is Italian—yes, I swear it is Italian! But—who then? It is superbe! But I know not it!”
“It is mine,” said the young person.
“Your music, miss?”
“I mean, I composed it.”
“Permit me to say, Brava!”
The ladies instantly petitioned to have it sung to them again; and whether or not they thought more of it, or less, now that the authorship was known to them, they were louder in their applause, which seemed to make the little person very happy.