“You’ll find she’s a loud, flashy vixen—snapping eyes, strident voice, bediamonded person. Women who resort to powder and shot to get rid of their husbands in this peaceable epoch of divorce, are scarcely worth a respectable man’s curiosity.”
“Hello!” cried Arthur, abruptly. “What’s that?”
“Oh, that,” answered Hetzel, “that’s the corner house—No. 46.”
Hetzel spoke metonymically. “That” was a descending musical scale—fa, mi, re, do, si, la, sol, fa,—which rang out all at once in a clear soprano voice, from someplace near at hand; a wonderfully powerful voice, with a superb bugle-like quality.
“Fa, sol, la, si, do, re, mi, fa,” continued the songstress. .
“By Jove,” exclaimed Arthur, “that’s something like.” Then for a moment he was all ears, and did not speak. At last, “The corner house?” he queried. “Has some one moved in?”
“Yes,” was Hetzel’s answer; “they moved in yesterday. I had this all the morning.”
“This singing?”
“Exactly, and a piano to boot. Scales and exercises till I was nearly mad.”
“But this—this is magnificent. You were to be envied.”