It sounded fine to have something specially composed for her, but we were accustomed to hear Fanny Deane, the most musical one among us, sing things set for her by her teacher--indeed, rather more than we could have wished; and I thought now to hear something of the same sort--some weak little melody all on a few notes, in a muffled little voice, with a word or two, such as "weinend," or "veilchen," or "frühling," or "stella," or "bella," distinguishable here and there, according as she sang in German or Italian. So you may imagine how I, as well as all the rest, was struck when, without a single note of prelude, her deep, low voice thrilled through the whole room:
I never felt so lonely and eery in my life; and then in a moment the wildly ringing music of the distant chase came, faint but growing nearer all the time from the piano, while her voice rose sweeter and sadder above it, till our pleasure grew more delicious as it almost melted into pain. The adventures of the fair maid in the wood were, to say the least, of a very compromising description; but we flattered ourselves that our course of realistic fiction had made us less provincial and old-fashioned, and we knew that nobody minded this sort of thing abroad, especially the Russians, of whom we supposed Mickiewicz was one till somewhat languidly set right by Mrs. Williams.
After that her singing made a perfect sensation all about Boston, the more because it was so hard to get her to sing. Her style was peculiar, and was a good deal criticised by those who had never heard her. She never sang anything any one else did--that is, anybody you might call any one, for I have heard her sometimes sing something that had gone the rounds of all the hand-organs, and make it sound new again; but many of her songs were in manuscript, some composed for her by Giudotti, and others old things that he had picked up for her--folk-songs, and ballads, and such. She always accompanied herself, and never from any notes, and very often differently for the same song. Sometimes she would sing a whole verse through without playing a note, and then improvise something between. She always sang in English, which we thought queer, when she had lived so long abroad; but she said Giudotti had told her always to use the language of her audience, and Willie, who had a pretty turn for versifying, used to translate for her. We felt rather piqued that she should ignore the fact that we too had studied languages, but we all agreed that she knew how to set herself off, and indeed we thought she carried her affectation beyond justifiable limits. She had to be asked by every one in the room, and was always saying that it was not worth hearing, and that she hoped people would tell her when they had enough of it, though, indeed, she could rarely be induced to sing more than twice. If her voice was praised, she said she had none; and when she was asked to play, she would say she could not--she could only accompany herself. A likely story--as if any one who could do that as she could, could not play anything!--and we used to hear her, too, when she was in her own house, with nobody there but her husband. As for him, he overflowed with pride and delight in her music, and evidently much more than pleased her, and sometimes he even made her blush--a thing she rarely did--by his remarks, such as that if we really wanted to know how Loulou could sing, we must hide in the nursery. It was while singing to her baby, it appeared, that the great Giudotti had chanced to hear her, and immediately implored the privilege of teaching her, for anything or nothing.