Angela Brazil

“ You are young, Mildred, and have never known any place but Kirkton, and we think you ought to make a trial of this other home before you finally choose between the two. It has always been my dearest wish that you should study music; but if after visiting Westmorland you find the life there is really more congenial to you than our plain workaday existence here, we would not allow the affection you feel for us to interfere in any way with your prospects. You would be perfectly free to cast your lot with whichever relations you believe could make you the happier. ”

“ Mildred, you shall live here with me as long as you like. I want you to enjoy it too. I'm most dreadfully sorry for you. It's hard luck to have absolutely nothing of your own."
Mildred looked down where her cousin's beautiful inheritance lay stretched before her. Her heart was too full to answer. Perhaps for a moment a shade of envy crossed her mind. It was indeed a fortunate lot to be heiress to such broad acres and so old a name. Some of the best things that life could offer had fallen to Violet's share. And what had she herself? An old violin, and the skill to play it—that was all! ”

“ Cyprian's teachers and music pupils, was to be at the concert. Poor Mildred, who grew hourly more and more nervous, was almost sick with apprehension as her aunt helped her to put on her white evening dress before the long mirror in the spare bedroom, and tied the wavy gold hair with a blue satin ribbon.
"Cheer up! You look like a little ghost!" said Mrs. Graham, pinching her niece's pale cheeks. "It won't be half so bad as you expect. You make it far worse by thinking too much about it. All the other performers are in the same case as yourself. You'll have plenty of companions in misfortune." ”

“ Graham and the Professor a rare and special talent such as God gives to but very few in this world—a talent to be taken humbly, and rejoiced in, and treasured zealously, and cultivated carefully, and which might bring more joy and beauty into the lives of others than even these glorious woods and waters; for music can lift the soul to the very summit of earthly ecstasy, and in some of its divinest strains we can almost catch an echo of the chorus of the "choir invisible" above. ”

“ He sat with paper and pencil, jotting down their respective points as to time, tune, tone and quality of voice, expression and general spirit, so many marks to each, and appeared as calm and collected and unmoved as if he were valuing goods for an auction.
"He doesn't show the least enthusiasm," whispered Mildred to Kitty, who sat next to her. "If it had been the Professor who was judging, he'd have been hopping about the platform." ”

“ The fear lest she should fail in her piece haunted her like a bad dream. The Professor was not easy to satisfy. His ideal was so high that she continually fell short of it, and in spite of incessant practising and extra music lessons, so hard seemed the task which she was attempting that she sometimes felt inclined to fling down her violin in despair, and give up the concert altogether. ”

“ The College without its Principal was like a sheepfold without a shepherd; and though the teachers did their best, everybody felt the lack of the strong guiding hand that was accustomed to hold the reins. No sooner was Miss Cartwright back at her post than several girls developed mumps, and a strict period of quarantine followed for any companions who had been in their vicinity—an unexpected holiday which their parents deplored, and they themselves scarcely appreciated, as they were barred from all social intercourse until the due number of days had expired. ”

“ I have rarely heard such playing in a concert room, and to find both the technique and the spirit of such a subtle work as the 'Frühlingslied' grasped by a girl of only sixteen is simply marvellous. Her own compositions are full of merit, though naturally still immature; they have the right ring about them, somehow—they're original, and not a mere reflection of what she has heard elsewhere. If she goes on with her training, she ought to have a great career before her, and make a name for herself. ”

“ I'm sorry beyond words for you to miss your lessons, but, after all, a few weeks is not a very large slice out of your life. You need a change for your health's sake, and if you really decide that you wish to study music, you will be able to make up for lost ground afterwards."
"The time will seem ages to me," declared Mildred. "I shall count every day till I'm home again."
"You mustn't say that, dear. I want you to promise to try to like Sir Darcy and Lady Lorraine. ”

“ We seldom question our earliest friends. They have grown dear to us long before we are at an age to criticize them, our love afterwards blurs our sight to what failings they possess, and consciously or unconsciously we are apt to measure all others by their standard. Mildred felt that her new relations, however kind they might prove, would never be the same as those who had stood to her in the place of father and mother. ”

“ Their little feet tripped about as if scarcely touching the stage, and they left a general impression among the audience that they were of such sylph-like and ethereal composition that it was almost possible to see through them. Their partners, the elves, were all brunettes, and wore pale-green tights and helmets made to represent big bluebells. Both they and their sister fairies carried long garlands of flowers, which they used in the performance of their dance, now holding them aloft, now waving them to and fro, and now joining them in a floral chain to link the sprites together. ”

“ Practise by yourself, but do not let anybody give you what they call 'lessons on ze violin'. Lessons! I am the only one who can teach you, out of Germany! All others would spoil what you have already learnt. I understand you go to a very great and rich house. I wish you well; yet do not quite forget ze old Professor, and think too of the music, which is a gift of Almighty God, more to be esteemed and held in honour than gold or high name."
"I won't forget, I won't indeed!" cried Mildred, her eyes moist at the Professor's emotion. "You know I love the music. ”

“ In the first place, the second sopranos are out of tune continually. You hurry the time too much in the middle, and drag it towards the end, and when you urge the girls to sing crescendo, you let them shout in the most atrocious fashion—like street-singers! There's nothing artistic about it at all."
"I might have known you'd be sure to find fault!" sneered Lottie. "It's very easy to pick holes in other folk's work. No doubt the high and mighty Mildred Lancaster would have made a most superior business of it! People always think if they'd had the reins they could have driven the kicking horse!" ”

“ You are under the age, you have resided more than seven years in Kirkton—I ask, then, what hinders?" [Pg 272]
"My own incompetence," protested Mildred. "All the clever students in the city will be going in for it. Why, it would never be given to a girl of hardly seventeen. The thing's impossible!"
"Age is no matter!" grunted Herr Hoffmann. "I do not often praise you, but you can play what many who are older dare not attempt. You shall try it? Yes? I go myself to see your good aunt, and persuade her. Have I not always said that you should study in Berlin? ”

“ I don't know whether Miss Ward is giving her lessons, but if so, they had better be discontinued, and she must confine herself to the piano. A little music is a nice accomplishment for any girl, but I do not consider it quite lady-like when it begins to rival professional playing; and as Mildred will not have to earn her living by her instrument, I wish her to put her violin entirely aside, and turn her attention to other things. Do you hear what I say, Mildred?"
"Yes, Uncle Darcy," answered Mildred, trembling all over, and feeling that the moment had come. ”

“ Rhoda was pleasant and companionable; and with Rodney, the second boy, Mildred found a strong bond of sympathy, for he was to go to Kirkton in the autumn to study engineering at a large motor works, and was glad to hear all that she could tell him about the city.
Though Mildred thoroughly appreciated the advantages of her new life at The Towers, she nevertheless missed the Grahams continually. Generous as the Lorraines were to her in many respects, their conduct was sometimes lacking in thoughtfulness. They were people who could only be kind in their own way. ”

“ The very essence of elvish roguery and frolic rang in the notes when "Undine", the lovely, wayward sylph, charmed the knight with her coquetry and unearthly beauty; the courtship of the changeling water-sprite, her wild whims, her light-hearted gaiety, the strange beings which ever accompanied her from the spirit world, and the sudden change in her bearing when at length she gains a human soul, were portrayed with such fidelity in the airy, elusive character of the music, that the whole of the tender love story seemed to live to the hearers. ”

“ Her influence over dreamy, romantic Mildred was excellent; she would spur her on to fresh efforts, both in lessons and athletics, and by a combination of sympathy, chaffing, and sheer will power often prevented her from falling into the slough of inertia to which her disposition was prone. Bright, jolly Kitty was well liked in her Form, and her appointment as Games delegate proved popular. Her enthusiasm was catching, and already the girls promised under her leadership to try to retrieve the lost glory of the College, and raise it again to its former standard. ”

“ She will probably have about forty minutes' choral singing weekly, and possibly—though this is by no means the rule—half an hour at theory, but of real music she does not understand even the rudiments. Pick out any ordinary girl of sixteen, take her to a concert, and ask her to name for you the various instruments in the orchestra: the chances are a hundred to one that the violin and the 'cello are about the limit of her knowledge. She could not tell you the difference between a sonata and a symphony, or give you the vaguest idea of the bass for such a simple tune as 'God save the King'. ”

“ I'm as steady as a railway truck running through a goods yard!" protested Diccon. "Never mind! I'll take Kitty, and we'll see who's greased lightning!"
"Right you are! We'll have our go first, then you can follow. Eric and Neville can act as judges."
"Suppose they disagree?" laughed Mildred.
"Then Rhoda is final umpire."
"It's the most blissful sport in creation!" declared Mildred, as she tucked herself on to Rodney's sleigh. "It beats swimming and dancing and rowing and hockey, and everything I know except flying, which I've never tried." ”

“ Most of the other students were practised players, some of whom indeed were training for a musical career. The Professor, anxious to keep up his deservedly high reputation as a teacher, would allow none but his best pupils to appear at his recitals.
"You get used to it in time," said one of the piano students, a tall, pretty girl with chestnut hair, just out of her teens, who stood working her fingers about as if to keep her joints supple. "I thought I should have died at my first concert, and now I don't really care very much." ”

“ To be thus chosen out, over the heads of Ella Martin and Elizabeth Chalmers, who were considered the "show" music pupils of the school, was a prospect calculated to agitate the most sober brains. But there was another side to it. To play such an important piece as the "Frühlingslied", which needed to be accompanied by a full orchestra, was indeed an ordeal for a girl hardly sixteen years of age. A public audience in the Town Hall was a different matter from the comparatively small gatherings of parents and friends at St. Cyprian's. The mere thought of it filled Mildred with nervous horror. ”