And Cousin Fanny was not herself any longer,
but we imagined some one else was there. Sometimes she suddenly began to sing
(she sang old songs, English or French); her voice might be weak
(it all depended on her whims; SHE said, on her health), in that case
she always stopped and left the piano; or it might be "in condition".
When it was, it was as velvety and mellow as a bell far off,
and the old ballads and chansons used to fill the twilight.
We used even to forget then that she was an old maid. Now and then
she sang songs that no one else had ever heard. They were her own;
she had composed both the words and the air. At other times
she sang the songs of others to her own airs. I remember the first time
I ever heard of Tennyson was when, one evening in the twilight,
she sang his echo song from "The Princess". The air was her own,
and in the refrain you heard perfectly the notes of the bugle,
and the echoes answering, "Dying, dying, dying." Boy as I was,
I was entranced, and she answered my enthusiasm by turning
and repeating the poem. I have often thought since how musical her voice was
as she repeated
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow forever and forever.
She had a peculiarly sentimental temperament. As I look back at it all now,
she was much given to dwelling upon old-time poems and romances,
which we thought very ridiculous in any one, especially in a spinster
of forty odd.
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