unchanging calm, she made a picture that the stranger never forgot. He
started as the first notes of her voice stole forth, and hung
quivering on the air,--

"Maxwellton braes are bonnie,
Where early fa's the dew."

What wonder was this? Dr. Anthony had come prepared to hear, he quite
knew what,--a child's voice, pretty, perhaps, thin and reedy, nasal,
of course. His good friend Brown was an excellent physician, but with
no knowledge of music; how should he have any, living buried in the
country, twenty miles from a railway, forty miles from a concert?
Brown had said so much about the blind child that it would have been
discourteous for him, Dr. Anthony, to refuse to see and hear her when
he came to pass a night with his old college chum; but his assent had
been rather wearily given: Dr. Anthony detested juvenile prodigies.
But what was this? A voice full and round as the voices of Italy;
clear as a bird's; swelling ever richer, fuller, rising in tones so
pure, so noble, that the heart of the listener ached, as the poet's
heart at hearing the nightingale, with almost painful pleasure.
Amazement and delight made Dr. Anthony's face a study, which his
friend perused with keen enjoyment. He knew, good Dr. Brown, that he
himself was a musical nobody; he knew pretty well (what does a doctor
not know?) what Anthony was thinking as they drove along. But he knew
Melody too; and he rubbed his hands, and chuckled inwardly at the
discomfiture of his knowing friend.

The song died away; and the last notes were like those of the skylark
when she sinks into her nest at sunset. The listeners drew breath, and
looked at each other.