"She
would as soon think of singing in public as of taking a bar-maid's place
in a public-house!"
"But why did you never tell me your sister was such an awful swell of a
singer?" asked Vavasor.
"Do you think so? She ought to feel very much flattered! Why I didn't
tell you?--Oh, I don't know! I never heard her sing like that before.
Upon my word I never did. I suppose it was because you were there. A
brother's nobody, don't you know?"
This flattered Vavasor, as how should it not? and without the least idea
of whither the spirit in the feet of his spirit was leading him, he went
as often to the Raymounts' lodging as for very shame of intrusion he
dared--that is, all but every night. But having, as he thought,
discovered and learned thoroughly to understand her special vein, as he
called it, he was careful not to bring any of his own slight windy
things of leaf-blowing songs under Hester's notice--not, alas! that he
thought them such, but that he judged it prudent to postpone the
pleasure: she would require no small amount of training before she could
quite enter into the spirit and special merit of them!
In the meantime as he knew a good song sometimes when he saw it, always
when he heard her sing it, never actually displeased her with any he did
bring under her notice, had himself a very tolerable voice, and was
capable of managing it with taste and judgment, also of climbing upon
the note itself to its summit, and of setting right with facility any
fault explained to him, it came about by a scale of very natural
degrees, that he found himself by and by, not a little to his
satisfaction, in the relation to her of a pupil to a teacher.
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