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'I do not think there is a country that could offer the entertainment for which I am indebted to you to-day. 'Ah, my friend, and you like their voices? The contralto? 'Exquisite. Dr. Themison had not spoken the name of Radnor. 'Shall we see you at our next Concert-evening in town? said Victor; and hearing 'the privilege' mentioned, his sharp bright gaze cleared to limpid.
"She heard me saying that I might be here myself, and maybe remembered that two are company," said Jack, with a laugh. But when Rutland Road was reached someone stood waiting to open the door of the cab and welcome the wanderer in the sweetest tones of a sweet contralto voice.
But then Kitty Tynan was as fond of singing as a canary, and relieved her feelings constantly by this virtuous and becoming means, with her good contralto voice. She was indeed a creature of contradictions; for if ever any one should have had a soprano voice it was she. She looked a soprano.
Giotto's coloured tower in Florence, that carries the bells for Santa Maria del Fiore and Brunelleschi's silent dome, does not ring more than four contralto notes, tuned with sweetness, depth, and dignity, and swinging one musical phrase which softly fills the country. The village belfry it is that grows so fantastic and has such nimble bells.
"Who is the contralto? That solo was beautifully sung," observed the younger man, pausing to read a tablet on the wall. "That is Miss Moore. Been here about a year, and is universally admired. Excellent young lady couldn't do without her. Sings superbly in oratorios. Ever heard her?" "Never. She came from X, I believe? "Yes, highly recommended.
A prelude-ended, and there floated out a voice of the kind that in his childhood he used to call "creamy" a full, true contralto; and this is the song that he heard, every syllable of it: Over the edge of the purple down, Where the single lamplight gleams, Know ye the road to the Merciful Town That is hard by the Sea of Dreams Where the poor may lay their wrongs away, And the sick may forget to weep?
With bare and sinewy arms they beat up and down in tiresomely monotonous stroke the long-handled dashers of cedar churns standing in the wide, open "entries" of the "double-houses;" they arrayed their well-scalded milk crocks and jars where the sun's rays would still further sweeten them; they plied swift shuttles in the weaving sheds; they toiled over great, hemispherical kettles of dye-stuffs or soap, swinging from poles over open fires in the yard; they spread out long webs of jeans and linen on the grass to dry or bleach, and all the while they sang sang the measured rhythm of familiar hymns in the high soprano of white women sang wild, plaintive lyrics in the liquid contralto of negresses.
Her voice, originally a soprano, became under training a contralto of delicious quality, as well as of great volume and power, though not remarkable for extent. She excelled in the cantabile style, and rarely attempted ornament, though what she did was always in perfect taste and proportion.
"You won't ask," Natasha's little brother was saying; "I know you won't ask!" "I will," replied Natasha. Her face suddenly flushed with reckless and joyous resolution. She half rose, by a glance inviting Pierre, who sat opposite, to listen to what was coming, and turning to her mother: "Mamma!" rang out the clear contralto notes of her childish voice, audible the whole length of the table.
She had worked herself into a fine glow of indignation again, and was ready to believe anything and everything bad about the agreeable youth with the blue eyes. "I must know!" she repeated, dropping her voice to a contralto note that she was fond of. "Tell me, Marm Prudence; tell me all! have I broken the bread of a recreant?" "I thought it was my bread," said Marm Prudence, dryly.
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