They are the prettiest singers in the chapel. That
little monkey with the cherub's voice is Purcell--Dr. Blow's favourite
pupil--and a rare genius."
They sang another song from De Malfort's repertoire, an Italian serenade,
which Hyacinth had heard in the brilliant days before her marriage, when
the Italian Opera was still a new thing in Paris. The melody brought back
the memory of her happy girlhood with a rush of sudden tears.
The little concert lasted for something less than an hour, with intervals
of light music, dances and marches, between the singing. Boats passed and
repassed. Strange voices joined in a refrain now and then, and the sisters
stood at the open window enthralled by the charm of the music and the
scene. London lay in ruins yonder to the east, and Sir Matthew Hale and
other judges were sitting at Clifford's Inn to decide questions of title
and boundary, and the obligation to rebuild; but here in this western
London there were long ranges of lighted windows shining through the wintry
mists, wherries passing up and down with lanterns at their prows, an air of
life and gaiety hanging over that river which had carried so many a noble
victim to his doom yonder, where the four towers stood black against the
starlit greyness, unscathed by fire, and untouched by time.
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