"Preserve your voice, by all means, and get as much instruction as you can; but change all that waving hair, and make it into unobjectionable smooth bands of no particular color. Get a mask to wear over your face, which is too expressive; do something to your eyes to alter their--"
The expression then visible in the said eyes seemed to strike him, for he suddenly stopped, and with a slight laugh, said:
"_Ach, was rede ich für dummes Zeug!_ Excuse me, _mein Fräulein_."
"But," I interrupted, earnestly, "what do you mean? Do you think my appearance will be a disadvantage to me?"
Scarcely had I said the words than I knew how intensely stupid they were, how very much they must appear as if I were openly and impudently fishing for compliments. How grateful I felt when he answered, with a grave directness, which had nothing but the highest compliment in it--that of crediting me with right motives:
"_Mein Fräulein_, how can I tell? It is only that I knew some one, rather older than you, and very beautiful, who had such a pursuit. Her name was Corona Heidelberger, and her story was a sad one."
"Well, no, I think not. But--sometimes I have a little gift of foresight, and that tells me that you will not become what you at present think. You will be much happier and more fortunate."
"I wonder if it would be nice to be a great operatic singer," I speculated.
"_O, behüte!_ don't think of it!" he exclaimed, starting up and moving restlessly. "You do not know--you an opera singer--"
He was interrupted. There suddenly filled the air a sound of deep, heavenly melody, which swept solemnly adown the aisles, and filled with its melodious thunder every corner of the great building. I listened with my face upraised, my lips parted. It was the organ, and presently, after a wonderful melody, which set my heart beating--a melody full of the most witchingly sweet high notes, and a breadth and grandeur of low ones such as only two composers have ever attained to, a voice--a single woman's voice--was upraised. She was invisible, and she sung till the very sunshine seemed turned to melody, and all the world was music--the greatest, most glorious of earthly things.
"Blute nur, liebes Herz! Ach, ein Kind das du erzogen, Das an deiner Brust gesogen, Drohet den Pfleger zu ermorden Denn es ist zur Schlange worden."