sic lesson, had been discovered in Italy
by the old Maestro, who managed the music of the private theatre which
the Prince had formed. He had heard her, a poor untaught girl, in a
coffee-house in Venice, and she afterwards became, in the opinion of
some, the most pathetic female actress and singer of the century.

The first chord of her voice penetrated into the boy's nature as nothing
had ever done before; he had never heard any singing save that of the
peasants at church, and of the boys and girls who sang hymns round the
cottage hearths in the winter nights.

The solemn tramp of the Lutheran measures, where the deep basses of the
men drown the women's soft voices, and the shrill unshaded singing of
the children, could hardly belong to this art, which he heard now for
the first time. These sudden runs and trills, so fantastic and
difficult, these chords and harmonies, so quaint and full of colour,
were messages from a world of sound, as yet an unknown country to the
boy. He stood gazing upon the singer with open mouth. The Prince moved
his jewelled hand slightly in unison with the notes; the monkey,
apparently rather scared, left off cracking his nuts, and, creeping
close to his master, nestled against his beautiful coat close to the
star upon his breast.

Then suddenly, in this world of wonders, a still more wonderful thing
occurred. There entered into this bewitching, this entrancing voice, a
strange, almost a discordant, note. Through the fantasied gaiety of the
theme, to which the sustained whirr of the harpsichord was like the
sigh of the wind through the long grass, there was perceptible a strain,
a tremor of sadness, almost of sobs. It was as if, in the midst of
festival, some hidden grief, known beforetime of all, but forgotten or
suppressed, should at once and in a moment well up in the hearts of all,
turning the dance-measures into funeral chants, the love-songs into the
loveliest of chorales. The Maestro faltered in his accompaniment; the
Prince left off marking the time, he swept the monkey from him with a
movement of his hand, and leaned forward eagerly in his seat: the
discarded favourite slunk into a corner, where it leaned disconsolately
against the wall. The pathetic strain went on, growing more tremulous
and more intense, when suddenly the singing stopped, the girl buried
her face in her hands and sank upon the floor in a passion of tears; the
boy sprang forward, he forgot where he was, he forgot t