the
conversational soprano, heard under these circumstances, would not
be among the allurements the old Enemy would put in requisition,
were he getting up a new temptation of St. Anthony.

There are sweet voices among us, we all know, and voices not
musical, it may be, to those who hear them for the first time, yet
sweeter to us than any we shall hear until we listen to some
warbling angel in the overture to that eternity of blissful
harmonies we hope to enjoy.--But why should I tell lies? If my
friends love me, it is because I try to tell the truth. I never
heard but two voices in my life that frightened me by their
sweetness.

--Frightened you?--said the schoolmistress.--Yes, frightened me.
They made me feel as if there might be constituted a creature with
such a chord in her voice to some string in another's soul, that,
if she but spoke, he would leave all and follow her, though it were
into the jaws of Erebus. Our only chance to keep our wits is, that
there are so few natural chords between others' voices and this
string in our souls, and that those which at first may have jarred
a little by and by come into harmony with it.--But I tell you this
is no fiction. You may call the story of Ulysses and the Sirens a
fable, but what will you say to Mario and the poor lady who
followed him?

--Whose were those two voices that bewitches me so?--They both
belonged to German women. One was a chambermaid, not otherwise
fascinating. The key of my room at a certain great hotel was
missing, and this Teutonic maiden was summoned to give information
respecting it. The simple soul was evidently not long from her
mother-land, and spoke with sweet uncertainty of dialect. But to
hear her wonder and lament and suggest, with soft, liquid
inflexions, and low, sad murmurs, in tones as full of serious
tenderness for the fate of the lost key as if it had been a child
that had strayed from its mother, was so winning, that, had her
features and figure been as delicious as her accents,--if she had
looked like the marble Clytie, for instance,--why, all can say is--

[The schoolmistress opened her eyes so wide, that I stopped short.]

I was only going to say that I should have drowned myself. For
Lake Erie was close by, and it is so much better to accept
asphyxia, which takes only three minutes by the watch, than a
mesalliance, that lasts fifty years to begin with, and then passes
along down the line of descent, (breaking out in a