“I have only heard her _once_,” said Lady Muriel. “It was that day when you brought us those mysterious flowers. The children had run out into the garden; and I saw Eric coming in that way, and went to the window to meet him: and Sylvie was singing, under the trees, a song I had never heard before. The words were something like ‘I think it is Love, I feel it is Love.’ Her voice sounded far away, like a dream, but it was beautiful beyond all words—as sweet as an infant’s first smile, or the first gleam of the white cliffs when one is coming _home_ after weary years—a voice that seemed to fill one’s whole being with peace and heavenly thoughts—— Listen!” she cried, breaking off again in her excitement. “That _is_ her voice, and that’s the very song!”
I could distinguish no words, but there was a dreamy sense of music in the air that seemed to grow ever louder and louder, as if coming nearer to us. We stood quite silent, and in another minute the two children appeared, coming straight towards us through an arched opening among the trees. Each had an arm round the other, and the setting sun shed a golden halo round their heads, like what one sees in pictures of saints. They were looking in our direction, but evidently did not see us, and I soon made out that Lady Muriel had for once passed into a condition familiar to _me_, that we were both of us ‘eerie,’ and that, though we could see the children so plainly, we were quite invisible to _them_.
The song ceased just as they came into sight: but, to my delight, Bruno instantly said “Let’s sing it all again, Sylvie! It _did_ sound so pretty!” And Sylvie replied “Very well. It’s _you_ to begin, you know.”
So Bruno began, in the sweet childish treble I knew so well:—
“Say, what is the spell, when her fledgelings are cheeping, That lures the bird home to her nest? Or wakes the tired mother, whose infant is weeping, To cuddle and croon it to rest? What’s the magic that charms the glad babe in her arms, Till it cooes with the voice of the dove?”
And now ensued quite the strangest of all the strange experiences that marked the wonderful year whose history I am writing—the experience of _first_ hearing Sylvie’s voice in song. Her part was a very short one—only a few words—and she sang it timidly, and very low indeed, scarcely audibly, but the _sweetness_ of her voice was simply indescribable; I have never heard any earthly music like it.