"Father," I've often thought I should like to be a nun."
"You a nun! And with that voice!"
She looked at him, smiling a little.
"What matter?"
"What matter! Have you not thought—but I understand; you mean that your voice is wasted here, that we shall never have the means to go abroad.... But we shall."
"Father, dear, I wasn't thinking of that. I do believe that means will be found to send me abroad to study. But what then? Shall I be happy?"
"Fame, fortune, art!"
"Those nuns have none of those things, and they are happy. As that old lady said their happiness comes from within."
"And you'll be happy with those things, as happy as they are without them. You're in a melancholy mood; come, we'll think of the work before us. I've decided that we give our concert the week after next. That will give us ten clear days."
He entered into the reasons which had induced him to give this concert. But Evelyn had heard all about the firm of musical publishers, who possibly might ask him to bring up the old instruments to London, and give a concert in a fashionable West-end hall. Seeing that she was not listening, he broke off his narrative with the remark that he had received a letter that morning from Sir Owen.