“From the birds,” Louie answered. “I am always imitating them. I cannot help it. I began when I was a child, first with the crows and bobolinks and then with the robins. I liked them best, and I’ve kept on till I guess I can sing like them all. Did I do well?” She looked up at Miss Percy, who stooped and kissed her as she replied: “Do well? I should think you did. Why, every musician and dancer stopped to listen to you. Do you know, you have a fortune in your voice—hundreds of dollars a night, perhaps.” “Oh!” Louie gasped; “I couldn’t do it; it tires me so, and makes my heart beat so fast when the people cheer—not the singing, but the cheering. If I were all alone, I could sing on and on forever, but I could never sing on the stage.” “Who is talking of the stage for Louie? You, Fred?” It was Herbert who spoke, and who had come out upon the veranda, preceded by Fred Lansing. “I am talking of Miss Grey’s voice,” Miss Percy said. “I told her there is a fortune in it.” “But not for the stage. Louie on the stage, with footlights and green rooms and powder and paint, and all sorts of people! I should not like it. Ugh!” and Herbert gave a whistle indicative of his opinion of all sorts of people with powder and paint and footlights. “Would you like to see her there?” he continued, turning to Fred, who answered: “I can scarcely imagine it, although I believe she might be a second Patti.” “But she won’t—she shan’t! I could never respect a girl who sang on the stage,” Herbert rejoined, with so much spirit that Louie burst into a merry laugh and said: “What are you so excited about? I am not on the stage and never shall be. I am here on the veranda, and awfully hot and thirsty. I wish you would bring me some water.” Both Herbert and Fred started for the water, but Herbert was first, and Fred returned to Louie and told her what a wonderful voice she had, and that it ought to be cultivated to the utmost, while Miss Percy said she could undoubtedly make a great success as a public singer, if circumstances required. “Oh, don’t,” Louie answered, closing her eyes wearily. “I have a presentiment that I may have to sing, and sometimes feel as if I were living in the future instead of thousands of years ago, as some say we did, and that I am before the footlights—real footlights—and there are seas of faces looking at me and thunders of applause, and I hate it all, but must do it for something, or some one. I wonder who it is?” She seemed to be talking to herself rather than to Miss Percy and Fred, both of whom looked curiously at her, while Fred suggested: “Doing it for fame, perhaps.” Louie shook her head. “Never for that. Only duty, or love for some one, could make me do in reality what I have so often done in fancy.” Herbert had brought her the water by this time, and she drank it eagerly. “Now I am all right,” she said, “but think I’d better go home. What time is it?”