aste.

Chance, or a presentiment of speedy success, led her to take her place,
on the first day, very near the master, in a peculiar seat--a sort of
small, low easy chair which inspired one with a sense of nonchalance.
She was in full sight. Her gaze, profound and sombre at times, roamed
over the room with the natural air of a meditative queen. She inspired
all beholders with curiosity and interest. The feeling which she aroused
in her fellow-pupils was less distinct. Her rare advantages caused a
vague fear in those who hitherto had securely held the foremost rank;
her beauty created a sense of rivalry, unconscious for the most part,
and yet betrayed by countless signs.

There was a flutter of excitement throughout the school. This increased
when the young woman confirmed, by her first efforts, all that her
agreeable appearance and fascinating voice had promised. She declaimed a
fragment from Gluck's "Armida" which other pupils sang; a word sufficed
to change interest to sympathy.

That accent touched all hearts. What visible grief and what a sense of
suppressed tears when in her grave, slow tones she uttered the phrase:

"You leave me, Rinaldo! Oh, mortal pain!"

The master soon obtained from this marvellous aptness, what is rarely
acquired, even after long years of study: dramatic effects free from all
hint of charlatanism. The distinguishing point between Madame Pasca and
Madame Barbot is, that the latter, while observing all the rules of the
method avoided servile imitation.

Delsarte was all the more delighted at his success, because he had
revealed to his scholar her true calling. Madame Pasca came to him for
singing-lessons, but her large, strongly-marked voice had little range.
She was directed toward the art which she afterward practiced, and began
her studies with tragedy. Some idea of what she did in this field may be
formed from the effect which she produced in pathetic scenes, where the
comedy allowed her serious voice to show its power and penetrating tone.

I need not speak of Madame Pasca's success at the Gymnase and abroad. It
is known and undoubted. Still she lacks the consecration of the stage
where Mars and Rachel shone. When this artist left the school to enter
upon her career, Delsarte said to her:

"My dear child, you will spend your life in atoning for the crime of
being my pupil."

He was right, for Madame Pasca has no place at the Francais yet.

I can speak from hearsay merely, of th