Page:Our Little Girl (1923).pdf/25

 “I’m so glad you came!” sighed Mrs. Loamford.

“Thanks,” said Elliott. “How are you, Loamford? Look a little thin. Ought to take up golf. Best tonic in the world.”

He stretched himself across a chair.

“What’s the argument tonight?”

His sister looked at him as to a judge of appeals.

“Don’t you think that Dorothy ought to take up singing?” she asked.

"Sure."

Mrs. Loamford turned to her husband, as who should say, “That settles it.”

“Singing,” asserted Mr. Reitz, although no one had solicited his opinion, “is a great art.”

He breathed heavily after this utterance, like the successful after-dinner speaker that he was.

“Tt’s something you can’t learn in a day—a week—a month—a year—two years,” he continued. “It takes talent, application, practice. It means that you’ve got a big job ahead of you and that you’ve got to tackle it with all the stuff that’s in you.”

“Dorothy has a beautiful voice,” interrupted Mrs. Loamford.

“Looking at it from my point of view,” continued her brother, “I should say that isn’t enough. She has a beautiful voice, you say. Very good. But will she make the most of it? Will she go in for singing the way a young man might go in for law, medicine, engineering? That’s the answer. To put it very plainly, has she got the guts?”

Loamford was always a bit annoyed at this question, which was his brother-in-law’s favorite.

“Dorothy has plenty of will power,” said Mrs. Loamford.