She caught his hands, and pressed them in an ecstasy of relief and gladness. He was moved himself when he saw her happy eyes were wet. "I didn't hear one of those notes last night. What did you do with your voice then?" "Grandma--she'd put down her foot--soft pedal--she's done that all my life." "Sing something--I'll play for you." He swept her off the piano-stool. "I don't know much but ballads." She pulled the yellowed sheets out of the stand, wondering as she turned them over which, if any, of these songs he had heard sung by great artists. She was on the point of asking him, when, "Oh," she said, jumping up, "here's this from 'Trovatore,'" and she set the music before him with the firm intention of rivalling that Patti people made such a fuss about. She sang the English words, "Ah, I've sighed to rest me," and not without a certain largeness of effect intensely satisfying to herself. "There's no doubt," he said, at the end, "that you have a voice. You, naturally, don't in the least know how to use it; but it's there." This was not what she had expected--in fact, it was a blow; for, in spite of her old desire to be taught, she looked towards a singing-master chiefly as a personal influence to help her into the operatic field. She felt it a grievance against her family that she had had no early advantages, and yet she had thought it more than probable that genius could do without them. But what if cousin Ethan was right? All the more need not to lose time. "The question is," she said, "What's to be done?" "Done?" "Yes." It flashed over her in the pause that he might think she was hinting that he should defray the expense of her training, and this suddenly seemed as repulsive to reason and to dignity as if five months before she had not calmly suggested it herself. It was Heaven's own mercy that letter had got lost! She must have been crazy when she wrote it. "Of course," she said, "my family can't do much, and"--looking at him half apologetically, and feeling the necessity to forestall him--"I couldn't allow any one else to do more than give me advice and letters of introduction. I have my plans all laid--but now my father's ill." "What plans?" "I was going to New York with my father next month to look over the field"--at his look of incredulity, she added: "operatic field. As I haven't any money, and can't possibly borrow, I must find a way to be a chorus-girl first." "What an idea!" He got up from the piano, and walked the length of the room and back. "A very good idea." "My dear Val--" He stopped. "No, cousin Ethan"--she motioned away his imaginary offer--"the Ganos don't borrow money, they do without." He smiled a little. "Did grandmamma approve of this chorus-girl plan?" "Of course she wouldn't. It's only father who knows." "Does he approve?" "Well, not to say approve, but he knows it's no use objecting." "Do you know, I don't approve of it either."