Naples, Signorina Rossi was laboring away with the most pertinacious
assiduity at cavatinas full of runs and scales and _fiorituri_
generally; and he was quite willing to believe that such diligence had
met with its due reward. But when the young lady modestly hinted that
she had left her music in the hall below, and would like Leo to hear
whether she had not acquired a good deal more of flexibility than her
voice used to possess, and when he had fetched the music and taken it to
the piano for her, he was not a little surprised to see her select
Ambroise Thomas's "Io son Titania." And he was still more astonished
when he found her singing this difficult piece of music with a
brilliancy, an ease, a _verve_ of execution that he had never dreamed of
her being able to reach.

"Brava! Brava! Bravissima!--Well, you _have_ improved, Nina!" he
exclaimed. "And it isn't only in freedom of production, it is in
quality, too, in _timbre_--my goodness, your voice has ever so much more
volume and power! Come, now, try some big, dramatic thing--"

She shook her head.

"No, no, Leo, I know what I do," she said. "I shall never have the grand
style--never--but you think I am improved? Yes. Well, now, I sing
something else."

He forgot all about her lack of a chaperon; they were fellow-students
again, as in the old days at Naples, when they worked hard (and also
played a little), when they comforted each other, and strove to bear
with equanimity the grumbling and querulousness of that
always-dissatisfied old Pandiani. Signorina Rossi now sang the Shadow
Song from "Dinorah;" then she sang the Jewel Song from "Faust;" she sang