It was to music, however, that she gave her chief attention, since she believed that for this art she had some positive talent A German in the pursuit of health had drifted to the remote southern city.  He was past middle age, but had retained through numberless disappointments and discouragements the one enthusiasm of his life; and in Madge he found a pupil after his own heart.  While his voice had lost much of its freshness and power, his taste was pure and refined.  He kindled in the young girl’s mind something of his own love and reverence for music on its own account.  To Madge, however, it would always remain a method of expression rather than a science or an art, and the old professor at last learned to recognize her limitations.  She would be excellent in only those phases of music which were in accord with her own feeling and thought.  She would not, perhaps could not, study it as he had done, for her woman’s nature and the growing purpose of her life were ever in the ascendant; but under his guidance her taste grew purer and her knowledge and power increased rapidly.  What she did she learned to do well.  Even Herr Brachmann was often charmed by the delicate originality of her touch, which proved that her own thought and feeling were infused into the music before her.

But her voice delighted him most.  With her increasing vigor was gained the ability to use her vocal organs in sustained effort.  He guarded her carefully against over-exertion, and her advance was assured and safe.  Note after note, true, sweet, and strong, was added to the compass of her voice, and this exercise reacted with increased benefit on her general health.  One can scarcely become a vocalist without toning up the vital organs, and in learning to sing Madge provided an antidote against consumptive tendencies.  Her gift of song at last began to attract attention.  Strangers loitered near the Wayland Cottage during warm, quiet evenings, and in society she was importuned by those who had heard her before.  She usually complied, for she was training herself to sing before an audience of one who was familiar with the best musical talent of the world.  Not that she wished to invite comparisons with this kind of talent, but merely to sing with such simple sweetness and truth that Graydon would forget the trained professional in the unaffected charm of the natural girl.

The manner of those who listened stimulated her hope.  At the first notes of her song all conversation ceased.  Even the unappreciative were impressed by a certain pathos, an appealing minor tone, which touched the heart while pleasing the ear.