rso! He
is Camilla's antenuptial guardian. Now you warm to it! In that condition
I leave you. Perhaps my child here will give you a taste of her voice.
The poetry does much upon reflection, but it has to ripen within you--a
matter of time. Wed this voice to the poetry, and it finds passage
'twixt your ribs, as on the point of a driven blade. Do I cry the
sweetness and the coolness of my melons? Not I! Try them."

The signorina put her hand out for the scroll he was unfolding, and cast
her eyes along bars of music, while Agostino called a "Silenzio tutti!"
She sang one verse, and stopped for breath.

Between her dismayed breathings she said to the Chief:--"Believe me,
signore, I can be trusted to sing when the time comes."

"Sing on, my blackbird--my viola!" said Agostino. "We all trust you.
Look at Colonel Corte, and take him for Count Orso. Take me for pretty
Camillo. Take Marco for Michiela; Giulio for Leonardo; Carlo for Cupid.
Take the Chief for the audience. Take him for a frivolous public. Ah, my
Pippo!" (Agostino laughed aside to him). "Let us lead off with a lighter
piece; a trifle-tra-la-la! and then let the frisky piccolo be drowned
in deep organ notes, as on some occasions in history the people overrun
certain puling characters. But that, I confess, is an illustration
altogether out of place, and I'll simply jot it down in my notebook."

Agostino had talked on to let her gain confidence. When he was silent
she sang from memory. It was a song of flourishes: one of those
be-flowered arias in which the notes flicker and leap like young
flames. Others might have sung it; and though it spoke favourably of her
aptitude and musical education, and was of a quality to enrapture easy,
merely critical audiences, it won no applause from these men. The
effect produced by it was exhibited in the placid tolerance shown by the
uplifting of Ugo Corte's eyebrows, which said, "Well, here's a voice,
certainly." His subsequent look added, "Is this what we have come hither
to hear?"

Vittoria saw the look. "Am I on my trial before you?" she thought; and
the thought nerved her throat. She sang in strong and grave contralto
tones, at first with shut eyes. The sense of hostility left her, and
left her soul free, and she raised them. The song was of Camilla dying.
She pardons the treacherous hand, commending her memory and the strength
of her faith to her husband:--

"Beloved, I am quickly out of sight:
I pray that yo