"Now, Miss Benette, I am to tell you something." "How good! Do go on." I laid my arm on the piano, but scarcely knew how to begin. "What is it to do, then?" asked Clara, winningly. "I am going really to be a musician, Miss Benette; I am going to Germany." She did not reply at first; but when I looked up, it was as though she had not wept, so bright she beamed. "That's all right, I knew you would. Oh! if she knew how much good she had done, how happy she would be! How happy she will be when she goes to a concert some day, in some year to come, and sees you stand up, and hears you praise music in the voice it loves best!" "Do you think so? Do you think it is the best voice of music?" "Because it is like the voice of a single soul, I do. But Mr. Davy says we cannot know the power of an orchestra of souls." "_I_ can." "Oh! I beg your pardon! I forgot." "But I don't think that I remember well; for whenever I try to think of it, I seem only to see his face, and hear his voice speaking to me, saying, 'Above all, the little ones!'" "How pretty it was! You will be sure to see him in Germany, and then you can ask him whether he wrote the 'Tone-Wreath.'" Oh, how I laughed again! "What sort of place shall I go to, should you think?" "I don't know any place really, Master Auchester. I can't tell what places they have to learn at, upon the Continent. I know no places besides this house, and Mr. Davy's, and the class, and church, and Miss Lenhart's house in London." "Are you not very dull?" Alas for the excitable nature of my own temperament! I was sure I should be dull in her place, though I had never felt it until my violin came upon me, stealthy and stirring as first love. She looked at me with serene wonder. "I don't know what 'dull' means. I do not want anything I have not got, because I shall have everything I want,--some day, I mean; and I would rather not have all at once." I did not think anything could be wanting to her, indeed, in loveliness or aspiration, for my religious belief was in both for her; still I fancied it impossible she should not sometimes feel impatient, and especially as those blue shadows I have mentioned had softened the sweetness of her eyes, and the sensation of tears stole over me as I gazed upon her. "We shall not practise much, I am afraid, Master Auchester, for I want to talk, and I am so silly that when I sing, I begin to cry." "For pleasure, I suppose. I always do." "Not all for pleasure. I am vexed, and I do not love myself for being vexed. Laura is going to Paris, Master Auchester, to study under a certain master there. Her papa is going too, and that woman I do not like. She is unhappy to leave me, but they have filled her head with pictures, and she is wild for the big theatres. She came to see me this morning, and I talked to her a long time. It was that made me cry." "Why, particularly?"