give you the note,'" said Garth,
demurely.

"I am sure you would," said Jane. "You are always so very kind. But I
prefer to keep the matter in my own hands."

"You realise the difficulty of making the voice carry in a place of
that size unless you can stand and face the audience?" Garth Dalmain
spoke anxiously. Jane was a special friend of his, and he had a man's
dislike of the idea of his chum failing in anything, publicly.

The same quiet smile dawned in Jane's eyes and passed to her lips as
when she had realised that her aunt meant her to volunteer in Velma's
place. She glanced around. Most of the party had wandered off in twos
and threes, some to the house, others back to the river. She and Dal
and Myra were practically alone. Her calm eyes were full of quiet
amusement as she steadfastly met the anxious look in Garth's, and
answered his question.

"Yes, I know. But the acoustic properties of the room are very perfect,
and I have learned to throw my voice. Perhaps you may not know--in
fact, how should you know?--but I have had the immense privilege of
studying with Madame Marchesi in Paris, and of keeping up to the mark
since by an occasional delightful hour with her no less gifted daughter
in London. So I ought to know all there is to know about the management
of a voice, if I have at all adequately availed myself of such golden
opportunities."

These quiet words were Greek to Myra, conveying no more to her mind
than if Jane had said: "I have been learning Tonic sol-fa." In fact,
not quite so much, seeing that Lady Ingleby had herself once tried to
master the Tonic sol-fa system in order to instruct her men and maids
in part-singing. It was at a time when she owned a distinctly musical
household. The second footman possessed a fine barytone. The butler
could "do a little bass," which is to say that, while the other parts
soared to higher regions, he could stay on the bottom note if carefully
placed there, and told to remain. The head housemaid sang what she
called "seconds"; in other words, she followed along, slightly behind
the trebles as regarded time, and a major third below them as regarded
pitch. The housekeeper, a large, dark person with a fringe on her upper
lip, unshaven and unashamed, produced a really remarkable effect by
singing the air an octave below the trebles. Unfortunately Lady Ingleby
was apt to confuse her with the butler. Myra herself was the first to
admit that she had not "much ear"; but