She spoke gently as she pointed out to him the operatic selections she wished him to copy, and he seemed to sun himself in her auburn, radiant presence, so that when he made his exit with the music-books under his arm, his bow, though not less reverent, was less timid.
It was ten years at least since Sarti had seen anything so bright and stately and beautiful as Lady Cheverel.

For the time was far off in which he had trod the stage in satin and feathers, the _primo tenore_ of one short season.

He had completely lost his voice in the following winter, and had ever since been little better than a cracked fiddle, which is good for nothing but firewood.

For, like many Italian singers, he was too ignorant to teach, and if it had not been for his one talent of penmanship, he and his young helpless wife might have starved.

Then, just after their third child was born, fever came, swept away the sickly mother and the two eldest children, and attacked Sarti himself, who rose from his sick-bed with enfeebled brain and muscle, and a tiny baby on his hands, scarcely four months old.