x.
_Tout doux, et iou
Et iou, tout doux.
Il y a unpommier doux_.

Trois belles princesses
_Vole vole mon coeur, vole_!
Trois belles princesses
Sont assis dessous.
_Tout doux, et iou
Et iou, tout doux.
Sont asses dessous._"

She had a beautiful, strong, sweet voice. But it was faltering,
stumbling and sometimes it seemed to drop almost to speech. After three
verses she faltered to an end, bitterly chagrined.

"No," she said. "It's no good. I can't sing." And she dropped in her
chair.

"A lovely little tune," said Aaron. "Haven't you got the music?"

She rose, not answering, and found him a little book.

"What do the words mean?" he asked her.

She told him. And then he took his flute.

"You don't mind if I play it, do you?" he said.

So he played the tune. It was so simple. And he seemed to catch the lilt
and the timbre of her voice.

"Come and sing it while I play--" he said.

"I can't sing," she said, shaking her head rather bitterly.

"But let us try," said he, disappointed.

"I know I can't," she said. But she rose.

He remained sitting at the little table, the book propped up under the
reading lamp. She stood at a little distance, unhappy.

"I've always been like that," she said. "I could never sing music,
unless I had a thing drilled into me, and then it wasn't singing any
more."

But Aaron wasn't heeding. His flute was at his mouth, he was watching
her. He sounded the note, but she did not begin. She was twisting her
handkerchief. So he played the melody alone. At the end of the verse,
he looked up at her again, and a half mocking smile played in his
eyes. Again he sounded the note, a challenge. And this time, as at his
bidding, she began to sing. The flute instantly swung with a lovely soft
firmness into the song, and she wavered only for a minute or two. Then
her soul and her voice got free, and she sang--she sang as she wanted to
sing, as she had always wanted to sing, without that awful scotch, that
impediment inside her own soul, which prevented her.

She sang free, with the flute gliding along with her. And oh, how
beautiful it was for her! How beautiful it was to sing the little song
in the sweetness of her own spirit. How sweet it was to move pure and
unhamper