enjoying it, asked if she could read notes,
and gave her the "Drinking Song" from _Lucrezia Borgia_ as a trial. Anne
sang it correctly without accompaniment, but slowly and solemnly as a
dead march. It is probable that "Il Segreto" never heard itself so sung
before or since. Belzini was walking up and down with his plump hands
behind him.

"You have never heard it sung?" he said.

"No," replied Anne.

"Sing something else, then. Something you like yourself."

After a moment's hesitation, Anne sang an island ballad in the voyageur
patois.

"May I ask who has taught you, mademoiselle?"

"My father," said the pupil, with a slight tremor in her voice.

"He must be a cultivated musician, although of the German school," said
Belzini, seating himself at the piano and running his white fingers over
the keys. "Try these scales."

It was soon understood that "the islander" could sing as well as study.
Tolerance was therefore accorded to her. But not much more. It is only
in "books for the young" that poorly clad girls are found leading whole
schools by the mere power of intellectual or moral supremacy. The
emotional type of boarding-school, also, is seldom seen in cities; its
home is amid the dead lethargy of a winter-bound country village.

The great event in the opening of Anne's school life was her first
opera. Tante, not at all blinded by the country garb and silence of the
new pupil, had written her name with her own hand upon the opera list
for the winter, without consulting Miss Vanhorn, who would, however,
pay for it in the end, as she would also pay for the drawing and dancing
lessons ordered by the same autocratic command. For it was one of
Tante's rules to cultivate every talent of the agreeable and decorative
order which her pupils possessed; she bathed them as the photographer
bathes his shadowy plate, bringing out and "setting," as it were, as
deeply as possible, their colors, whatever they happened to be. Tante
always attended the opera in person. Preceded by the usher, the old
Frenchwoman glided down the awkward central aisle of the Academy of
Music, with her inimitable step, clad in her narrow satin gown and all
her laces, well aware that tongues in every direction were saying:
"There is Madame Moreau at the head of her school, as usual. What a
wonderful old lady she is!" While the pupils were filing into their
places, Tante remained in the aisle fanning herself majestically, and
surveying them with a