When there was no theatre or church she played about her mother’s room or under the trees in the public gardens, very much in the fashion of other French girls. Playing in an orchestra is not the road to wealth. The pay was very small, and even with the organ salary and the music lessons things did not prosper very happily and the little Camilla had to content herself with such juvenile joys as could be procured without very much money. This, happily, did not make much difference. There was enough to eat and pretty good things to wear and no end of music. This last seemed to quite satisfy her. The orchestra, the organ and the choir afforded her perpetual amusement, and her life was as happy as that of the most favored child in the town. When not listening to music she was very active and merry and displayed an abundant fund of good health and spirits. She early learned to talk and walk and was considered an unusually bright and precocious girl. Her earliest months gave a hint of her love for music. If fretful or peevish with weariness or ill-health she could soon be pacified by a gentle song from her father as he carried her about in his arms. The first intimation of a desire to make music herself came when she was three years old. Hearing a hand-organ play in the street while the family were at dinner she softly left the table and went into the next room. Presently the tune on the hand-organ was repeated on the piano in the parlor. Her father opened the door quickly only to find the child trying to hide, as if she had done something wrong. Before she could talk she could hum over or sing a number of songs, and at four years of age could repeat in a thin piping voice many of the songs and airs sung by her mother and always insisting that the accompaniment should be played while she sang. She did not go to school. Hardly any children in the town had any such advantage. There were a few small primary schools and that was about all the chance that was open to the young people of Nantes for an education. So far in Camilla’s life it did not make any particular difference. Things were going on quite to her satisfaction and she was perfectly happy even if she could not read or write.