Page:Rachel (1887 Nina H. Kennard).djvu/17

 saye tells us, how, one day, when singing in the Place Royale, a benevolent-looking man, with kindly eyes, stopped as he went by, and, attracted by the look of intelligence in the younger girl's face, put a five-franc piece into her hand. She took the piece of silver, and watched the receding figure, while close beside her she heard a voice say, "That is Victor Hugo." Little did the great poet think the pale-faced child was one day destined to effect a complete revolution in that world of art of which he was then the head.

A much more important meeting than this, so far as the young tragedian's future was concerned, was the one with Étienne Choron, teacher of a class of sacred music that held its meetings in the Rue Vaugirard. The story goes that one day, walking along the Boulevards, he heard the sisters sing, and pressed through the crowd that had gathered round them. He saw a little girl of ten or twelve, thinly clad, standing in the snow, the very picture of misery. With her benumbed fingers she held out a wooden bowl for a sou. Choron dropped a silver coin into it. His heart was touched, and the deepest feeling of interest for the child was awakened. "Who taught you to sing so well?" he asked. "Nobody, Sir," was the answer; "I have learnt as I could." "But where did you hear those airs you sang just now?" "I picked them up here and there; when I go about the streets, I listen under the windows to those ladies and gentlemen who sing, and try to catch the tune and the words, and afterwards arrange them the best way I can." "You are cold and hungry. Come both of you with me; I will provide for you." Choron led them away, and little Rachel and her sister never appeared on the Boulevards again.