It was surprising that so small and slight a creature as Lallie could have such a big voice--a rich, carrying mezzo soprano voice; the sort of voice usually associated with the full-bosomed, substantially built women that one encounters on concert platforms or in grand opera.
Portali, the great singing-master in Paris to whom her father had taken her when she was seventeen, explained it thus:
"She sings as a bird sings, but she would never make a public singer. She hasn't the physique, she hasn't the industry; above all, she hasn't the temperament; but she can sing now as no amount of training could ever make her. Give her good lessons--occasionally--but only the best; never let any provincial teacher come near her. If she ever has a bad illness she'll probably lose her voice altogether, but if she only sings for pleasure--for her own, and yours, and that of the fortunate people thrown with her, never as a business--she may keep it till she is quite an old woman. Let her choose her own songs--Folk songs are what she can sing--but let her sing what she pleases; she will never go wrong. Let her keep her wild-bird voice; don't try to tame or train it too much."
Lallie began to sing very softly "Synnove's Lied"--the andante that is sung as if humming to one's self; then suddenly she let her voice go. "Oh to remember the happy hours!" Right through the house it rang, passionate, pathetic, pleading.
Tony leapt to his feet and opened his study door; at the same instant he heard some one prop open the swing door that shut off the study passage from his part of the house, and down the long corridor every door was opened.
"Our world was bounded by the garden trees,
Then came the churchyard and the river."
The big, beautiful voice died down, and once more came the quaint humming refrain. Again--musical, intensely melancholy--the voice rang out.
"But now the garden is white with snow,
At night I wait, I stand and shiver,"
sang Lallie most realistically, for the drawing-room really was rather cold.
"The place is frosty, the cold winds blow,
Oh love, my love, but you come never."