I'll pay for your tickets." When the four friends were alone with Madame Mignon, Madame Latournelle, after looking at Dumay, who being a Breton understood the mother's obstinacy, and at her husband who was fingering the cards, felt herself authorized to speak up.
"Madame Mignon, come now, tell us what decisive thing has struck your mind." "Ah, my good friend, if you were a musician you would have heard, as I have, the language of love that Modeste speaks." The piano of the demoiselles Mignon was among the few articles of furniture which had been moved from the town-house to the Chalet.
Modeste often conjured away her troubles by practising, without a master.

Born a musician, she played to enliven her mother.

She sang by nature, and loved the German airs which her mother taught her.

From these lessons and these attempts at self-instruction came a phenomenon not uncommon to natures with a musical vocation; Modeste composed, as far as a person ignorant of the laws of harmony can be said to compose, tender little lyric melodies.

Melody is to music what imagery and sentiment are to poetry, a flower that blossoms spontaneously.
Consequently, nations have had melodies before harmony,--botany comes later than the flower.