Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/332

 parlor window fell upon it like a halo. The music was singularly beautiful. In that hour Uncle Bobby felt it, though he almost forgot that it was his own. Then came the change in the harmony—that change which had made his heart beat high when first it dawned in his brain. The noble voice rose to its full volume, and rang forth on the words

melting again into a vibrating sweetness with the last line,

For an instant after the final chord died away no one spoke or moved. Then there was a burst of applause. When it ceased, Uncle Bobby heard the singer answering questions. He wished she would not put that voice of hers to such a prosaic use as talking. He drew back in his chair, that he might not be seen from within.

"I don't know anything about the composer but his name," Miss Alton was saying.

"But where did you get the piece?" asked a summer boarder, who "sang a little herself."

"I found it among some old music of my mother's. I came across it when I was a young girl, and I fell in love with it. Indeed, I was singing that song when it first came over me that I had a voice."

"Won't you sing it again?" some one begged.