The young singer was withdrawn from the platform, and arrangements made for the complete and careful training of her voice, and Geraldine carried home with her the happy knowledge that her protégé's lovely gift would be turned to the best advantage after due probation.
It is not as a part of the story that this little interlude is given. It is only an illustration of the beautiful and unselfish character of one whose great desire at all times was to show her love to God by making the life of her neighbour brighter and more useful. In after years her protégé's success and gratitude more than repaid Geraldine for the self-denial by which the former had been purchased.
It is not wonderful that Aylmer Matheson should have been moved by a similar desire to benefit the young singer, seeing that his life was ruled by the same law as that which actuated Geraldine. Being a man, and anxious that his motives should not be misunderstood, he went about his inquiries more slowly than Geraldine had done. When at length he was brought into communication with the young singer's mother, he found that he had been anticipated. Some benefactress, whose identity was not to be revealed, had undertaken all cost and responsibility, and the grateful thanks of those whom he would have benefited could only be given for good intentions.
"Could the benefactress be Kathleen?" he asked himself. "It would be like her impulsive generosity;" but he decided that she would hardly undertake such an expenditure until she was of age, without previous consultation with himself. He remembered, too, that she had been more inclined to ridicule the pretensions of the young vocalist, and to criticize her appearance than to sympathize.
"Could it be Geraldine who had anticipated him?"
It was likely enough; but if so, it would be useless for him to try to penetrate the secret, much as he would have liked to be her partner in such a work.
Aylmer was deeply sensible of the beauty of Geraldine's character, and perhaps at times his thoughts ran in a similar direction to Kathleen's. She wished that she could give Aylmer more than a sister's affection, or that he could feel more than a brother's regard for Geraldine.
"It is just the contrariness of human nature," he said to himself. "Geraldine and I have so much in common. If I could love her as I do Kathleen, I should have a wife who would enter into every plan and hope of mine, always supposing that she cared for me in like manner. We must be too much alike, for Kathleen's very wilfulness charms me more than all Geraldine's excellences put together."