"
"To abandon all thought of a professional career! You would ask me
this, Sir Oswald--_you_ who have so often told me that all my hopes for
the future depended on my cultivation of the art I love?"
"You love your art very much then, Honoria?"
"More than I love life itself."
"And it would grieve you much, no doubt, to resign all idea of a public
career--to abandon your dream of becoming a public singer?"
There was a pause, and then the girl answered, in a dreamy tone--
"I don't know. I have never thought of the public. I have never
imagined the hour in which I should stand before a great crowd, as I
have stood in the cruel streets, amongst all the noise and confusion,
singing to people who cared so little to hear me. I have never thought
of that--I love music for its own sake, and feel as much pleasure when
I sing alone in my own room, as I could feel in the grandest opera-
house that ever was built."
"And the applause, the admiration, the worship, which your beauty, as
well as your voice, would win--does the idea of resigning such
intoxicating incense give you no pain, Honoria?"
The girl shook her head sadly.
"You forget what I was when you rescued me from the pitiless stones of
the market-place, or you would scarcely ask me such a question. I have
confronted the public--not the brilliant throng of the opera-house, but
the squalid crowd which gathers before the door of a gin-shop, to
listen to a vagrant ballad-singer.
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