The manager met her.
“You have done very well, Miss Ford,” he said, encouragingly. “They are calling you back. You must go on the stage once more. And mind you don’t undo the favorable impression you have already produced.”
Go back again! Helen’s heart fluttered nervously, but there was no appeal. She drew a long breath, and went back.
Her re-appearance was greeted with enthusiasm. Then followed a profound silence—a hush of expectation. The clear voice of Helen once more broke the stillness, as she re-commenced her song. Helen’s eyes were directed towards the audience, but she saw them not. She was carried back in memory to the time when she sang this song at her mother’s knee, and unconsciously a gentle pathos and tone of repressed feeling blended with her notes that touched the audience, and hushed them to earnest attention.
There was a hard-featured Scotchman who sat in one of the front seats in the parquet, who, listening intently, furtively wiped a tear from his eye.
“She’s a sweet lassie,” he said, in a low tone, to his neighbor. “There’s a look about her that minds me of one I shall never see again.”
And the worthy Scotchman, whose heart was tender, though his manner was rough and his features hard, thought sadly of a flower that once bloomed in his home, but had faded early,—transplanted to the gardens of Paradise.
“Well!” remarked M’lle Fanchette, fanning herself violently, “to think of the forwardness of that child. If she had any modesty, she wouldn’t brazen it out before the public with so much boldness.”
“She seems modest enough,” replied Alphonso Eustace, to whom this remark was addressed, “and she certainly sings magnificently. Her voice is superb.”
“I saw nothing very remarkable about her singing,” returned the lady, fanning herself with increased violence. “I suppose there are other people that have voices as well as she. I used to sing myself, but nothing on earth would have tempted me to make such a public exhibition of myself.”