than
teaching children to read. That would lead them to dreadful infidelity,
and what not. Besides, what will you? M. Urso will do as he pleases with
the child.

At its best Nantes is a sleepy place, and in those days it was more
narrow, petty and gossipy than can be imagined. A small town in New
England where every mother's daughter can read is bad enough, but in a
compact French town where every one must live next door or next floor to
everybody else gossip runs wild. Totally ignorant of books or any matter
outside of their own town, the people must needs fall back on themselves
and quietly pick each other to pieces. Everybody had heard that
Salvatore Urso, the flute player intended to teach his little girl the
violin. Part of the town approved of this bold, audacious step and part
of the town thought it eminently improper, if not positively wicked.
There was the Urso party and the anti-Urso party. They talked and
quarrelled over it for a long time in a fashion that was quite as narrow
minded and petty as could be imagined and it was more than a year before
the excitement subsided.

In the meantime the little Camilla was perfectly happy over her new
violin. The first refusal had not discouraged her. She waited a few days
and then repeated her request to her father. No. It could not be. This
did not seem to disconcert her, for in a few days she again asked if she
might have a violin and a teacher. This time the refusal was not so
decided. Again and again did the little one ask for a violin--only a
violin--that was enough. The importunate pleading carried the day and
the father took the matter into consideration.

Boys might play the violin, but a girl. That was quite another thing.
One girl had been known to play the violin. Mlle. Theresa Melanello had
played the violin, why not Camilla? If she wished to play so much it
must be that she had genius. Should it prove true she might become a
famous artist and win a great fortune. Perhaps, even sooner, much money
might come from the child's playing.

Of course the child must at once go to Paris and enter the Conservatory
of music. Paris was a long way off. It would cost a deal of money to
get there and when there, it would cost a deal more to live, and there
was no way of earning anything in Paris. The theatre, the church and the
lessons enabled them to live tolerably well in Nantes. To give up these
things would be simple folly. It could not be done. The prospect was