"Let me hear you," said Lady Strangways encouragingly, "and then I can tell you what I think. Do not be too shy to sing your best."
"I am never shy when I am singing," said Eleanor. "Why should I be? I am proud of my beautiful voice. No young, coming-on singer has a voice like it; in a few years, with proper training and hard work, I shall rank with Melba and Tetrazzini."
Lady Strangways gave a little gasp.
"You have not a very modest opinion of yourself, my dear," she could not refrain from saying, as she eyed her niece rather curiously.
"Of myself I have a very modest opinion," returned Eleanor. "I know my own faults, and some of them are pretty bad, as you will say one day, perhaps, but there is no fault to be found with my voice—none—except that, of course, it is not trained yet; but it would be too absurd for me to be mock modest about it as though its beauty were something that I could plume myself on. It is a gift—a glorious gift—and I love it and worship it."
Eleanor made a striking picture as she sat there with her hands folded in her lap, while the sun, pouring in from a small west window set high in the wall, turned her red-brown hair to gold. Lady Strangways surveyed her with an ever deepening amazement. This niece, with her brilliant colouring and her excited, vivacious manner, was very unlike the girl she had imagined her niece would be; very different, also, to the shy, awkward girl she had been a few minutes back.
As Eleanor gave utterance to her impassioned speech, the slightly mocking smile with which she had been eyeing Lady Strangways died away, and was replaced by an earnest, rapt look, which showed to her listener how seriously she herself took every word she was saying.
Then Eleanor turned to the piano and ran her fingers lightly over the keys. Lady Strangways nodded approvingly, as she listened to the firm, good touch. The girl was really quite musical. She perceived that already, and if her choice of a song had been less wildly ambitious, or better still, if she would go on playing and not sing at all, why——