Miss Diatone is not one to starve for the sake of art, nor is her mother one to let her, for Madame Brown-Smith has something personal to say in the matter. Did she not pay for her daughter’s musical education out of the slender means her husband left her, and is it not fair that she should now enjoy the profits? But if her daughter studied the interests of art before popularity, the profits would be slight indeed. The fact is, it pays to sing commonplace songs, and the “royalty system” therefore provides an important portion of Miss Diatone’s income. Moreover, Miss Diatone urges that she must sing what the public want to hear, and when she sings songs of the pretty-pretty order now in vogue, she is vociferously encored. Moreover, she receives a fee from the publishers of the song as well as from the concert-giver, whereas, if she were to sing any really artistic song, which, of course, she will pretend she would much prefer doing, her audience would, she believes, be sure to find it “above their heads” and would applaud her faintly, and the publishers would not find it worth while to give her a “royalty.” The encore and the “royalty” seem indeed to be the goals of the modern concert-singers’ ambition, and for these they will sell their artistic souls. I do not know how it is, but as soon as the commercial aspect of the musical profession takes hold on the artist’s life, it seems to narrow the soul, to prevent that true _camaraderie_ which exists amongst all other artists than musicians, and to promote self-serving and jealousy. The struggle for existence in the musical world would too often appear to be opposed to magnanimity of mind and generosity of soul, for those who exhibit these qualities in their professional lives and in their art-work, are not, as a rule, among the prosperous. It is a small world, not the world of song, mark you, but the world of professional singers, and it is full of the littleness of small communities. Of course there are exceptions, but they only prove the rule.