A Singer's Story
next day, after lessons, I went up to the Edwards place and roamed about, singing contentedly as I went.
"That was out-of-doors, and I might perfectly well have shouted had I wished, but it never occurred to me to do so. In the first place, it might have called attention from some passer-by; in the next place, it never seemed necessary in the least. I thought it was a kind of musical reading, and my only thought was to make the idea plain, in the subdued fashion I had been brought up to.
"I had a happy summer with my music, but in the fall a sad thing happened: sad in itself, but tragic in its consequences as far as I was concerned. Aunt Sarah caught a heavy cold, which ran into pneumonia, and after a short sickness she died. I was very sorry, for I had spent a great deal of time with her, and though she was not a lovable woman, she had been the only real teacher I had ever had; and then, she had given me music! But my sorrow at her death was swallowed up in an agony of dread when I learned that
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