mere uninteresting scales of notes.
A timid question at length elicited one or two abrupt remarks which
humbled, but at the same time informed, her. The teacher, like most of
his kind, was a poor creature of routine, unburdened by imagination; he
had only a larynx to deal with, and was at no pains to realise that the
fountain of its notes was a soul. To be sure, that was a thought which
he was not accustomed to have forced upon him.

Humbled and informed, Thyrza took her lessons with faultless patience,
and with the hopeful zeal which makes light of every difficulty. She
felt her voice improving, and when she sang to herself the old songs
she was no longer satisfied with the old degree of accuracy. A world of
which she had had no suspicion was opening to her; music began to mean
something quite different from the bird-warble which was all that she
had known. Moreover, she began to have an inkling of the value of her
voice. Mrs. Ormonde had scarcely with a word commended her singing, and
had spoken of the lessons as something that might be useful, with no
more emphasis. The master, of course, had only praise or blame for the
individual exercise. But there was someone in the house who felt bound
by no considerations of prudence; Clara, hearing Thyrza's notes, was
entranced by them, and of course took the first opportunity of saying
so.

'You really think I have a good voice?' Thyrza asked once, when they
had grown accustomed to each other.

'You have a splendid voice, Miss Trent!' replied Clara, who delighted
in bestowing praise.

'Do you think I shall really be able to sing some day--I mean, to
people?'

'Why not? I fancy people will be only too anxious to get you to sing.'

'In--in places like St. James's Hall?' Thyrza asked, her ears tingling
at her audacity.

'Some day, I've no doubt whatever.'

Thyrza sewed, as a rule, for six hours a day, save of course on the
days when she went to the Home. For her leisure she had found so much
occupation that she seldom went to bed before midnight. In her walk to
the omnibus which took her to Hampstead, she had to pass a second-hand
book-shop, and it became her habit to put aside sixpence a week--more
she could not--for the purchasing of books. With no one to guide her
choice, and restricted as she was in the matter of price, she sometimes
made strange acquisitions. She avoided story books, and bought only
such as seemed to her to contain solid matter--history by prefere