The Merivale Banks by Mary Jane Holmes

With renewed health Louie began to be impatient to begin her life work, as she called it. Miss Percy and the Lansings would like to have spent the late spring among the Italian lakes, and the summer in Switzerland; but they yielded to Louie's wishes, and the last of April found them again in Paris, occupying what, during the empire, had been a palace, but was now let to anyone with money enough to rent and keep it up, with the grounds around it. Both Miss Percy and the Lansings had the money, and no princess was ever more luxuriously lodged and cared for than Louie, who for a few days abandoned herself to the pleasure of seeing the city, sometimes with Mrs. Lansing and Miss Percy, but oftener with Fred, who knew every point of interest, and made it doubly interesting by his own enthusiasm. For the gay shops Louie cared nothing. She should never wear anything but black, she said, and she looked so pure and sweet in her simple mourning, which so effectively brought out the brilliancy of her complexion and the brightness of her eyes, that strangers turned to look at her as she walked through the picture galleries, or drove in the Bois de Boulogne. The French called her La Belle Americaine, and the English and Germans called her Fred Lansing's fiancée, the young men envying him the prize he had won, and the young women envying her her beauty, of which she seemed wholly unconscious.

Her looks were of small moment to her. Nothing mattered much but her voice, which was soon to be tested-not to see if it were worth cultivation, she thought, but to see how much it was worth and how long it would take before she could try her wings. If occasionally a spasm of pain contracted her throat, or something rose up and choked her when she tried a high note, it caused her no fear. She had experienced the like before, and it had passed away. She was a little nervous, that was all, she said, and did not guess how anxious Mrs. Lansing and Miss Percy and Fred were when the day of trial came. She only thought how very kind and gentle and tender they were towards her, as a mother is towards her child when a painful ordeal is in store for it. She had no real fear. She was eager for the trial, hoping that in a year she could begin to earn something to send home, to show the people she was keeping faith with them. She had a list of all the debts, and knew just how much was owing still, and to whom, and which ones she should pay first. It looked like a heavy load, and as she went over the amounts with Fred, who was quite as much interested as herself, her lips quivered a little as she said, "It is a big lot, but I can do it in time. Don't you think so?"