About thirty miles from the sea, on the River Loire, in France, stands the quaint, sleepy old town of Nantes. The Erdre and the Sevre, two smaller streams unite with the Loire just here and the town is spread out in an irregular fashion over the islands, the little capes between the rivers, and the hills that stand round about. The old part of the town is on the hill-side and occupies the two islands called Freydean and Gloriette, the more modern city has spread over the surrounding country among the groves of chestnut, and the vineyards that fill every available spot where the grapes can get a good look at the sun all through the long sunny days.The river runs swift and bright through the town and flashes under the handsome bridges with their long rows of stone arches. In the river are boats, ships, and steamers, for the good people there spend much of their time in commerce and in catching and curing the silver-white pilchards that swim in such great schools in the neighboring sea.

The broad quays that skirt the river are planted with trees, making a most delightful walk, and near the eastern end of the town one of the quays ends at what remains of an old chateau or palace. The houses are mostly of stone, with slated roofs. There are some fine stores in the Place Royal that are quite as grand as those in Paris. There are also some old, old churches black with age, dim and vast inside, with statuary on the outer walls, and splendid gothic towers that seem to blossom all over with stone flowers as they climb so far up into the sky above the quaint old town.

Round about the town are gardens and summer houses, pleasant walks and drives, vineyards, groves and all the things that go to make a charming rural scene.

In the Place Graslin is a fine theatre and a handsome Town Hall. Of these buildings more presently when we come to see what happened within them.

In this old French town in June 1846 there lived a very little girl just four years old. Her home was on the first floor of a small house on a narrow street not far from the Place de la Monnaie, an open square that led into one of the principal streets known as the Rue Voltaire. The house was built in the usual French fashion with a large arch-way under the house that led into a court-yard in the centre. The front door opened into the shady arch-way, and the window balconies were filled with flowering plants in pots.

Her name was Camilla. Her father Monsieur Salvatore Urso played the flute in the orchestra at the theatre, or opera house, and on Sundays played the organ at the Church of the Holy Cross that stood facing a little square not far from the river.

Her mother Madame Emelie Urso was a young and very handsome woman, and a fine singer. She also helped her husband in his music lessons. She was born in Lisbon in Portugal, but as she had come to France when quite young, she had forgotten her mother tongue and now spoke French and Italian. This last may have been owing to the fact that her husband was from Palermo, Sicily. With Camilla’s parents lived her mother’s sister, Caroline, whom we shall know as aunt Caroline. This made the Urso household.

Both of Camilla’s parents were young and she was their oldest child and only daughter. There was at this time a baby brother and later there were three more brothers. The first four years of the little one’s life were passed in an uneventful manner, very much in the fashion of other children everywhere. When she was four years old she began to go to the theatre with her father. Every night she put her small hand in his and trotted off to the Place Graslin to sit with him in the orchestra among the violins and close beside her father’s flute. He was a noted player in those days and the little one shared his seat, with the music book spread before her, and the stage in full view.

It was quite a fine theatre and many notable things took place there. Operas, both new and old, were given, and often between the acts, a piano was brought out and such famous players as traveled in that part of France appeared and showed what they could do. Celebrated violinists and great singers also appeared at times. So it happened that the little Camilla almost lived in the midst of an orchestra and before she was five years old had heard many of the best players and singers of the times.

The orchestra became almost a second home to her. The lights, the crowds of people, the music were every day matters and she grew up to be quite indifferent to the public character of such a life. Most children would have soon learned to go to sleep in the midst of it all. Camilla never thought of such a thing. While the music went on she was content. If she could only nestle down in a corner where she could hear those violins and her father’s flute she was perfectly happy in a demure and sober fashion that was infinitely amusing in such a very small girl.

On Sundays and on fÊte days when the church was open she went with her father to the church of the Holy Cross.

The church was an old one and to reach the organ loft high up over the great portal they had to climb a steep and winding stair in the great tower. The stairs were worn deep with footsteps so that it was hard climbing for the little one. Still, she always went with her father and mother. Did he not play the tall organ with its great white pipes, and did her mother not sing? She had a good seat where she could look up at the black arches springing so high overhead, or down on the people who seemed so small in the church far below.

When there was no theatre or church she played about her mother’s room or under the trees in the public gardens, very much in the fashion of other French girls.

Playing in an orchestra is not the road to wealth. The pay was very small, and even with the organ salary and the music lessons things did not prosper very happily and the little Camilla had to content herself with such juvenile joys as could be procured without very much money. This, happily, did not make much difference. There was enough to eat and pretty good things to wear and no end of music. This last seemed to quite satisfy her. The orchestra, the organ and the choir afforded her perpetual amusement, and her life was as happy as that of the most favored child in the town.When not listening to music she was very active and merry and displayed an abundant fund of good health and spirits. She early learned to talk and walk and was considered an unusually bright and precocious girl. Her earliest months gave a hint of her love for music. If fretful or peevish with weariness or ill-health she could soon be pacified by a gentle song from her father as he carried her about in his arms.

The first intimation of a desire to make music herself came when she was three years old. Hearing a hand-organ play in the street while the family were at dinner she softly left the table and went into the next room. Presently the tune on the hand-organ was repeated on the piano in the parlor. Her father opened the door quickly only to find the child trying to hide, as if she had done something wrong.

Before she could talk she could hum over or sing a number of songs, and at four years of age could repeat in a thin piping voice many of the songs and airs sung by her mother and always insisting that the accompaniment should be played while she sang.

She did not go to school. Hardly any children in the town had any such advantage. There were a few small primary schools and that was about all the chance that was open to the young people of Nantes for an education.

So far in Camilla’s life it did not make any particular difference. Things were going on quite to her satisfaction and she was perfectly happy even if she could not read or write.Thus in a quiet way with much music the months had slipped away till she was five years old. Then suddenly came the awakening of a new life. Something happened that cast the rosy glow of coming day over the twilight of her life. The morning star that shone out clear and bright before her young eyes took the shape of a violin solo in a mass called St. Cecilia. She was in the church when its promise-speaking light flashed upon her. There was an orchestra, and a full chorus, with the organ. The little Camilla now almost six years old sat in the old organ loft and heard it all. She listened and dreamed and wondered and wished and wished she could only do something like that solo for the first violin. An ordinary piece of music, indifferently played, but somehow it enchained her whole attention. It threw wide open the pearly gates of a new and fairer life.

Many a time she had heard famous players at the theatre. They had never interested her as did this one. He was not a very fine player. His music was not particularly wonderful, but there was something about it that pleased her greatly. She had been already excited by the music. The majestic and noble character of the mass, the chorus sounding so loud and grand through the church, the orchestra, her father’s organ with its great thunder tones rolling under it all, had sent the blood tingling through her veins. The great company kneeling on the floor so far below. The lights and flowers on the altar. The blue clouds of incense rising softly on the air and the dusky bars of colored light slanting across the springing arches. The scene, the music, everything affected her. Then that song on the violin. It was beautiful—and—if she could. No—she never, never could—and it was all a dream. She was even reluctant to leave for home after the service was over and wanted to linger in the vast, dim church and dream it all over again.

If she only could play like that—if she could have a real violin, all her own and play on it, why, that would be just too wonderfully grand and splendid for anything. There were not words in the French language that could express the pleasure it would give her. She could not speak of it. It was too good to talk about.

For several days she thought about it and dreamed of it and wondered if it would do to tell her father and ask him to give her a violin. At last the secret became unbearable and on creeping into her mother’s bed before daylight one morning for her regular petting she ventured to lisp to her mother that she wanted a violin—“a real one, to play upon herself.”

The morning star faded away quickly, and there was only the dull grey dawn in the child’s sky. Her mother treated her request with laughter and put out the little Camilla’s hope with a flat refusal.