“Wonderful, marvellous—I could see it forever and ever! It is a new art. It is painting and poetry and sculpture and the theatre all expressed in one,” cried she. “My dear, you have genius. I never saw anything remotely like it. And now—can it be possible that with all these perfections you also have a voice worth hearing? If so, I declare it unjust, preposterous. The most of us have no gifts at all. The few have one, but you—”
“I have called her Pandora, for indeed she has them all,” says Sir William, and the gentlemen who understood the classical allusion applauded. And Emma sang. She put her heart into it. She gave them her famous “Luce bella” with ornaments of diamond and crystal clearness that the Banti herself could not have excelled. Her voice sparkled and glittered; nothing more brilliant could be imagined. And then when she had driven them all into the realms of soulless admiration—for what is such art but an exquisite gymnastic?—she led them back into the forests of true romance with a simple ballad from Scotland, in homage to the Duchess whose soft eyes filled with tears in listening.
They have slain the Earl o’ Moray
And laid him on the green.—
The cry of it! The tears in her soft voice!
Oh, the bonny Earl o’ Moray
He was the Queen’s love.
And lang, lang may his lady
Look o’er the Castle doun,
Ere she see the Earl o’ Moray