ttention. "Sing that again, little girl," he said.

Encouraged by his kind glance, Helen again sang the scale in her clear
voice. A radiant look overspread Bear-Tone's big face.

"Wal, wal!" he cried. "But you've a voice, little one! Sing that with
me."

Big voice and girl's voice blended and chorded.

"Ah, but you will make a singer, little one!" Bear-Tone exclaimed. "Now
sing Woodland with me. Never mind notes, sing by ear."

A really beautiful volume of sound came through the window at which I
listened. Bear-Tone and his new-found treasure sang The Star-Spangled
Banner and several of the songs of the Civil War, then just
ended--ballads still popular with us and fraught with touching memories:
Tenting To-night on the Old Camp Ground, Dearest Love, Do You Remember?
and Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys Are Marching. Bear-Tone's rich voice
chorded beautifully with Helen's sweet, high notes.

As we were getting into the pung to go home after the meeting, and Helen
and her older sister, Elizabeth, were setting off, Bear-Tone dashed out,
bareheaded, with his big face beaming.

"Be sure you come again," he said to her, in a tone that was almost
imploring. "You can sing! Oh, you can sing! I'll teach you! I'll teach
you!"

The singing school that winter served chiefly as a pretty background for
Bear-Tone's delight in Helen Thomas's voice, the interest he took in it,
and the untiring efforts he made to teach her.

"One of the rarest of voices!" he said to the old Squire one night when
he had come to the farmhouse on one of his frequent visits. "Not once
will you find one in fifty years. It's a deep tribble. Why, Squire, that
girl's voice is a discovery! And it will grow in her, Squire! It is just
starting now, but by the time she's twenty-five it will come out
wonderful."

The soprano of the particular quality that Bear-Tone called "deep
tribble" is that sometimes called a "falcon" soprano, or dramatic
soprano, in distinction from light soprano. It is better known and more
enthusiastically appreciated by those proficient in music than by the
general public. Bear-Tone, however, recognized it in his new pupil, as
if from instinct.

The other pupils were somewhat neglected that winter; but no one
complained, for it was such a pleasure to hear Bear-Tone and Helen sing.
Many visitors came; and once the old Squire attended a meeting, in order
to hear Bear-Tone's remarkable pupil. In Days of Old when Knights were
Bold, dear