"Never. How often during the last
dreary six months have I not repeated them to myself. They had been
alternately my joy and my misery according as my hopes of getting proper
training some day, and my fear that I never would were in the ascendant.
But all that is over now, and I am a pupil of Martelli's. Do you know,
Margaret, I have to pinch myself sometimes to make sure that I am awake
and not dreaming. Even as I sit here telling it all to you the whole
situation--you, me, Madame Martelli, and everybody seem as though they
were a part of a dream, a lovely dream, but still a dream. Does it seem
like a dream to you?"
"N--no, not exactly," said Margaret, with a slow shake of her head. "It
all seems quite real to me. But tell me what Madame Martelli said about
your voice."
"Yes, I am not telling my story properly," said Eleanor, "but the truth
is that though I sit here so calmly, and talk so quietly, I am just
devoured by excitement whenever I think of my good luck. Well, I can tell
you what Madame Martelli said in a very few words. She was even more
enthusiastic than Signor Vanucci about my voice. Far, far more. I went
down to her the very first morning after I got here, you know. Mrs.
Murray was rather surprised at my eagerness to start off to my lessons,
she wanted instead to take me for a drive and show me the country, she
said; but I told her that I would much rather go down and see the Signora
at once, and so, although I believe she was a little disappointed that I
would not come driving with her, she took me down to the little house
where the Signora lives and left me to my fate after she had introduced
us.
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