Page:Alice Lauder.pdf/66

My father sent me all the money he could scrape up by hook or by crook. Aunt Selina did all she could out of her little savings; still I was obliged to take to teaching, choir-singing, or any other scraps of paying work which turned up—generally turned up by the helping hand either of the professor, or of Mrs. Damon, my other good genius. But the double work was too much, and the London smoke and nocturnal atmosphere depressed me beyond measure; thus the usual hackneyed story of overwork in two volumes, and break down in the third, claimed me for its author. I had arrived at the point of departure: a great potentate in the musical world had agreed to let me sing at a concert of some note. The potentate had heard my voice ‘on approval’ in private, and though not wildly enthusiastic in praise, he was understood to mumble that ‘he had heard a worse C in alt’—a modified word of approval which moved the dear old professor to ecstasy, and caused me to be regarded as a marked personage by the other pupils. But the day before the concert I heard of my poor father’s death—thrown from his horse when just going from one house to another—and the news came upon me with such a shock that I broke down completely. Not only did my voice disappear, like a spring that sinks under-