After a pause of perfect silence, to ascertain that no return of the echoes could be expected, Julia was eagerly called upon to sing. She asked Edmund to join her in the echo duet, and smiled as she spoke to him. Half his unhappiness vanished in a moment, and the song commenced. The tones of Edmund’s voice were full and firm. His singing, however, derived its principal charm from his manner, which had in it so much of truth and nature, that you could almost fancy him one addressing you with no object but to persuade by the purport of his words; while the mere inflexions of the voice, in sympathising with that purport, unconsciously formed themselves into varied and melodious harmonies. As for Julia’s voice, it chanced to be one of those wonders, rare as the blow of the aloe! Cultivation had, of course, not been spared; but it was its native power and unexampled compass which were so remarkable. Its variety of capabilities too delighted, for in soft or playful passages, its tones had, as we have somewhere remarked, an almost infantine sweetness. On the present occasion, the scenery, the music, the effect of the echoes, all were inspirations; and the notes which escaped from her lips, gradually arose, till imagination could fancy them travelling on above the clouds, and the listeners felt an involuntary impulse to look upwards, as in pursuit of them. Then, as the air varied, the voice would suddenly fall full and plump on the truest and richest harmonies below, while the higher tones were repeated far above by now receding, now approaching echoes. Soon did the whole wild region round about seem peopled by invisible beings; wandering voices called from every pointed crag of every mountain top; while the steep-sided rock, near which the boat still lay, appeared to contain some dark enchanter, who, all the time in hurried and mysterious accents, spoke from within. Even every little tufted island seemed to have its own, one, wild inhabitant; for each, from some projecting point or hidden bower, sent forth a voice, however faint in its tone or inarticulate in its utterance. Julia’s enthusiasm arose so high, that she not only exerted every power of her extraordinary voice, but, when she had concluded, forgetting how considerable a part she had borne in the general concert, she cried, “Beautiful! beautiful!” in absolute extacy at the echoes. “Beautiful! beautiful!” exclaimed Edmund at the same moment, meaning, probably, Julia’s singing, but certainly not his own. “Beautiful! beautiful!” repeated the voice of thunder from within the adjacent perpendicular rock. “Beautiful! beautiful!” ran along the invisible orchestra above. Frances could keep her countenance no longer at the self-gratulations of the performers, visible and invisible; she laughed out, and a merry peal from all the echoes followed immediately.