All this was very neatly contrived, and Mrs. Ormonde felt rather proud of her success in so far meeting the requirements of a very difficult case.  A competent judge had reported so favourably of Thyrza’s voice, that there was a strong probability of its some day enabling her to earn a living—­should that be necessary—­in one of the many paths which our musical time opens to those thus happily endowed; no stress was laid on that, however, for it was far from desirable that Thyrza should be nursed into expectation of a golden future.  Mrs. Ormonde had determined that, if her exertion would accomplish it, Thyrza should yet have as large a share of happiness as a sober hope may claim for a girl of passionate instincts, of rare beauty, and, it might be, of latent genius.  To be sure, such claim cannot be extravagant.  The happy people of the world are the dull, unimaginative beings from whom the gods, in their kindness, have veiled all vision of the rising and the setting day, of sea-limits, and of the stars of the night, whose ears are thickened against the voice of music, whose thought finds nowhere mystery.  Thyrza Trent was not of those.  What joys were to be hers she must pluck out of the fire, and there are but few of her kind whom in the end the fire does not consume.

But for the present things seemed to be set going on a smooth track.  And to be sure, though she had thought it better to ask no such kindness, Mrs. Ormonde knew that her friend Clara Emerson would very shortly make a companion of Thyrza.  It was Clara’s nature to make a friend of any ‘nice’ person who gave a sign of readiness for friendly intercourse; the fact of Thyrza’s being untaught, and a needle-plier, would make no difference to her when she had discovered the girl’s sweetness of disposition.

Thyrza wondered much at the way in which her singing-master proceeded with her instruction.  She had looked forward to learning new songs, and she was allowed to sing nothing but mere uninteresting scales of notes.  A timid question at length elicited one or two abrupt remarks which humbled, but at the same time informed, her.  The teacher, like most of his kind, was a poor creature of routine, unburdened by imagination; he had only a larynx to deal with, and was at no pains to realise that the fountain of its notes was a soul.  To be sure, that was a thought which he was not accustomed to have forced upon him.

Humbled and informed, Thyrza took her lessons with faultless patience, and with the hopeful zeal which makes light of every difficulty.  She felt her voice improving, and when she sang to herself the old songs she was no longer satisfied with the old degree of accuracy.  A world of which she had had no suspicion was opening to her; music began to mean something quite different from the bird-warble which was all that she had known.  Moreover, she began to have an inkling of the value of her voice.  Mrs. Ormonde had scarcely with a word commended her singing, and had spoken of the lessons as something that might be useful, with no more emphasis.  The master, of course, had only praise or blame for the individual exercise.  But there was someone in the house who felt bound by no considerations of prudence; Clara, hearing Thyrza’s notes, was entranced by them, and of course took the first opportunity of saying so.