d of music. This last seemed to
quite satisfy her. The orchestra, the organ and the choir afforded her
perpetual amusement, and her life was as happy as that of the most
favored child in the town.

When not listening to music she was very active and merry and displayed
an abundant fund of good health and spirits. She early learned to talk
and walk and was considered an unusually bright and precocious girl. Her
earliest months gave a hint of her love for music. If fretful or peevish
with weariness or ill-health she could soon be pacified by a gentle song
from her father as he carried her about in his arms.

The first intimation of a desire to make music herself came when she was
three years old. Hearing a hand-organ play in the street while the
family were at dinner she softly left the table and went into the next
room. Presently the tune on the hand-organ was repeated on the piano in
the parlor. Her father opened the door quickly only to find the child
trying to hide, as if she had done something wrong.

Before she could talk she could hum over or sing a number of songs, and
at four years of age could repeat in a thin piping voice many of the
songs and airs sung by her mother and always insisting that the
accompaniment should be played while she sang.

She did not go to school. Hardly any children in the town had any such
advantage. There were a few small primary schools and that was about all
the chance that was open to the young people of Nantes for an education.

So far in Camilla's life it did not make any particular difference.
Things were going on quite to her satisfaction and she was perfectly
happy even if she could not read or write.

Thus in a quiet way with much music the months had slipped away till
she was five years old. Then suddenly came the awakening of a new life.
Something happened that cast the rosy glow of coming day over the
twilight of her life. The morning star that shone out clear and bright
before her young eyes took the shape of a violin solo in a mass called
St. Cecilia. She was in the church when its promise-speaking light
flashed upon her. There was an orchestra, and a full chorus, with the
organ. The little Camilla now almost six years old sat in the old organ
loft and heard it all. She listened and dreamed and wondered and wished
and wished she could only do something like that solo for the first
violin. An ordinary piece of music, indifferently played, but somehow it
enchained her