Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 2).djvu/221

 from the dining-room to the garden, with its beds and banks of ferns, marguerites, bluebells, and scarlet geraniums. Beneath a leafy arch the singer, in our illustration, is seen standing.

Just then the clock in the dining-room chimes five—a suggestive warning that in the prettiest corner of the drawing-room a little table is laid out for tea; for it was during such an essentially Kensingtonian ceremony as "five o'clock tea" that I learnt from Madame Albani's lips the story of her life. It is no easy matter to describe the famous singer. She is a handsome woman, of unbounded vivacity, and speaks with a charming French accent. She accompanies her story with constant gesture, and is always smiling. She will look at you and speak most seriously, but her eyes are ever twinkling with merriment. She is a delightful woman, who has won her present position to-day by sheer hard work.

"What am I to tell you? What am I to tell you?" she exclaims, pouring out a cup of tea. "Shall I go back to many, many years ago, when as a tiny mite of two and a half I used to watch my father's fingers on the violin, as I stood by his side and tried to sing each note? Well, I will. That was at Chambly, near Montreal, where I was born on November 1, 1851, in a little house that was so small, that when they wanted to make some alterations in the neighbourhood, they lifted it up and moved it away bodily. But it is not destroyed. Another spot was found for it. My father was a professor of music and organist, and at that early age I commenced to study. I have heard him say that I sang before I talked. When I was four my mother also looked after my musical training, and a year later I was practising five and six hours every day. I often used to practise then two hours every morning before