The Singing Lesson Summary

Miss Meadows, a singing teacher, comes to school feeling great despair because she has received a letter from her fiancé Basil breaking off their engagement. When the Science Mistress asks if Miss Meadows is cold in the chilly autumn weather, Miss Meadows tries to hide her unhappiness and feels hatred toward the Science Mistress. At the start of the singing lesson, her student Mary Beazley offers Miss Meadows a yellow chrysanthemum and Miss Meadows ignores her gesture, deeply wounding the girl’s feelings.

As Miss Meadows begins to teach, she instructs the girls to sing a sad, autumnal song. She asks them to add sorrowful emotion to their voices, and the weather outdoors appears bleak to Miss Meadows as she recalls the cruel letter Basil sent her. Their engagement seemed like a miracle to her, specifically because she is a woman of thirty, which she feels is nearly too old to have romantic prospects. Miss Meadows despairs of the humiliation and judgement she will face within the school when it is known that Basil has broken their engagement off. She thinks that she will have to leave her job and disappear from the school community altogether rather than face the Science Mistress and the students once they learn what happened. She asks the girls to sing so sorrowfully, and many of the girls begin crying.

Miss Meadows is called out of the class and Miss Wyatt, the headmistress, gives Miss Meadows a telegram from Basil. He says she should ignore his previous letter, saying he “must have been mad” to end their engagement, and he says he has bought a hat-stand. Despite the coldness of this telegram, Miss Meadows is overcome with joy—even while Miss Wyatt scolds her for receiving a telegram that isn’t urgent bad news during the school day. When she is back in her classroom Miss Meadows assigns the students a triumphant summer song, and Miss Meadows herself sings the song louder than any of the students.