When the news was broken to me, with great gentleness,
that my little companion had run away from the sisters with whom she had
been placed--run away, and left no traces behind her, I hardly realised
how completely she would have passed away from me. I thought of her for a
little while with some regret; then I remembered Stradivarius, and I could
not be sorry long. So by degrees I ceased to think of her.
I lived on in Lady Greville's house, going with her, wherever she
stayed--London, Paris, and Nice--until I was thirteen. Then she sent me
away to study music at a small German capital, in the house of one of the
few surviving pupils of Weber. We parted as we had lived together, without
affection.
Personally Lady Greville did not like me; if anything, she felt an actual
repugnance towards me. All the care she lavished on me was for the
sake of my talent, not for myself. She took a great deal of trouble in
superintending, not only my musical education, but my general culture. She
designed little mediaeval costumes for me, and was indefatigable in her
endeavours to impart to my manners that finish which a gutter education had
denied me.
There is a charming portrait of me, by a well-known English artist, that
hangs now in her ladyship's drawing-room.
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