He pranced nimbly to the door and flung it open.

"Giulia! Giulia!" he shouted, and a minute later a fat, amiable-looking
woman, whose likeness to Baroni proclaimed them brother and sister, came
hurrying downstairs in answer to his call. "Signora Evanci, my sister,"
he said, nodding to Diana. "This, Giulia, is a new pupil, and I would
haf you hear her voice. It is magnificent--_épatant_! Open your mouth,
little singing-bird, once more. This time we will haf some scales."

Bewildered and excited, Diana sang again, Baroni testing the full compass
of her voice until quite suddenly he shut down the lid of the piano.

"It is enough," he said solemnly, and then, turning to Signora Evanci,
began talking to her in an excited jumble of English and Italian. Diana
caught broken phrases here and there.

"Of a quality superb! . . . And a beeg compass which will grow beeger
yet. . . . The contralto of the century, Giulia."

And Signora Evanci smiled and nodded agreement, patting Diana's hand, and
reminded Baroni that it was time for his afternoon cup of consommé. She
was a comfortable feather-bed of a woman, whose mission in life it seemed
to be to fend off from her brother all sharp corners, and to see that he
took his food at the proper intervals and changed into the thick
underclothing necessitated by the horrible English climate.

"But it will want much training, your voice," continued Baroni, turning
once more to Diana. "It is so beeg that it is all over the place--it
sounds like a clap of thunder that has lost his way in a back garden."