“Thank you for calling me by that name,” she replied.  “It carries me back to a happier time.  I hardly know myself as La Senorita Campaneo.  It all seems to me so strange and unreal, that, were it not for a few visible links with the past, I should feel as if I had died and passed into another world.”

“May I ask whether you intend to renew your engagement?” inquired he.

She looked up quickly and earnestly, and said, “What would you advise me?”

“The brevity of our acquaintance would hardly warrant my assuming the office of adviser,” replied he modestly.

The shadow of a blush flitted over her face, as she answered, in a bashful way:  “Excuse me if the habit of associating you with the memory of my father makes me forget the shortness of our acquaintance.  Beside, you once asked me if ever I was in trouble to call upon you as I would upon a brother.”

“It gratifies me beyond measure that you should remember my offer, and take me at my word,” responded he.  “But in order to judge for you, it is necessary to know something of your own inclinations.  Do you enjoy the career on which you have entered?”

“I should enjoy it if the audience were all my personal friends,” answered she.  “But I have lived such a very retired life, that I cannot easily become accustomed to publicity; and there is something I cannot exactly define, that troubles me with regard to operas.  If I could perform only in pure and noble characters, I think it would inspire me; for then I should represent what I at least wish to be; but it affects me like a discord to imagine myself in positions which in reality I should scorn and detest.”

“I am not surprised to hear you express this feeling,” responded he.  “I had supposed it must be so.  It seems to me the libretti of operas are generally singularly ill conceived, both morally and artistically.  Music is in itself so pure and heavenly, that it seems a desecration to make it the expression of vile incidents and vapid words.  But is the feeling of which you speak sufficiently strong to induce you to retire from the brilliant career now opening before you, and devote yourself to concert-singing?”

“There is one thing that makes me hesitate,” rejoined she.  “I wish to earn money fast, to accomplish certain purposes I have at heart.  Otherwise, I don’t think I care much for the success you call so brilliant.  It is certainly agreeable to feel that I delight the audience, though they are strangers; but their cries of ‘Bis!  Bis!’ give me less real pleasure than it did to have Papasito ask me to sing over something that he liked.  I seem to see him now, as he used to listen to me in our flowery parlor.  Do you remember that room, Mr. King?”