vulgarity of a Colorado mountain town to her great career as a singer.

Belle Archie

Belle Archie, the doctor’s wife, a fanatical woman engaged in a constant campaign against dust. She dies as the result of her passion for cleanliness, when gasoline she is using to clean furniture explodes, burning her and the house.

Fritz Kohler

Fritz Kohler, a German-born tailor, one of the first settlers in Moonstone. He has never forgotten his earlier years in his homeland. He rescues Herr Wunsch, the broken-down German music teacher, from his dirty room over a saloon, gives him a proper home, and for a time turns the old drunkard into a respectable citizen and competent teacher. Kohler has three grown sons who work and live away from home; they are ashamed of their father’s broken English, his European ways, and his sentimental memories of the past.

Paulina Kohler

Paulina Kohler, his wife, a woman dedicated to making her husband comfortable and her garden grow. Indifferent to the town’s opinion, she wears the same clothing summer and winter, prefers men’s shoes to women’s, and cultivates plants instead of friends. Her garden resembles a small corner of the Rhine Valley set down in an expanse of sagebrush and sand. Generous and warmhearted to those she likes, she welcomes Thea into her home. Through her friendship with the Kohlers and Herr Wunsch, Thea catches a glimpse of a different world, of older, more cultured, and less materialistic European life as illustrated by the older generation of immigrants.

Johnny Tellamantez

Johnny Tellamantez, called Spanish Johnny, a temperamental musician living in the Mexican settlement on the outskirts of Moonstone. A painter by trade, he is given to periodic spells of restlessness during which he suddenly leaves home and travels through the West and Mexico. On these trips, from which he usually returns exhausted and ill, he earns his way by singing and playing his mandolin in bars and cafés. Thea Kronborg scandalizes the proper citizens of Moonstone by going to Mexican Town to hear Johnny and his friends play their folk songs.

Ray Kennedy

Ray Kennedy, a freight train conductor on the run between Moonstone and Denver. Older than Thea Kronborg, he has fallen in love with her and hopes to marry her when she grows up. He is fatally injured in a railroad wreck. After his death, it is learned that Thea is the beneficiary of his six hundred dollar life insurance policy.

Philip Frederick Ottenburg

Philip Frederick Ottenburg, the younger son of a wealthy family of brewers, a lover of music, and a patron of the arts. Years before, barely out of college, he had made an unfortunate marriage, and he now lives apart from his violently hysterical and mentally deranged wife. Meeting Thea Kronborg at the studio of Madison Bowers in Chicago, Ottenburg is immediately attracted to the reserved yet intense young girl from Moonstone, both as a woman and as an artist. When Thea, exhausted by intense study and hard work, seems on the verge of a breakdown, he sends her to his father’s ranch in Panther Canyon, Arizona, to recuperate. When he sees her again, she has been revitalized by her summer in the hot sun and dry air, and he asks her to marry him. Hating himself for his deception but able to rationalize his act, he takes Thea to Mexico, only to lose her when she learns that he is already married. He tries to lend her money for study in Europe, but she rejects his offer and asks her old friend, Dr. Archie, for a loan. Thea and Ottenburg resume their friendship when she returns from Europe, and she marries him after his wife’s death.

Andor Harsanyi

Andor Harsanyi, the brilliant young musician under whom Thea Kronborg studies piano in Chicago. Like Herr Wunsch, he is baffled by the combination of talent, intelligence, and ignorance in her nature, her stubborn secrecy, and her determined resolve. After working with her for a time, he discovers that she possesses an untrained but magnificent voice.

Madison Bowers

Madison Bowers, the teacher under whom Thea Kronborg studies voice. She admires him as a teacher but dislikes him as a man because of his fashionable following. Bowers is cynically amused when Fred Ottenburg begins to take an interest in Thea and her career.

Pastor Peter Kronborg

Pastor Peter Kronborg, Thea’s father, an unimaginative but sincerely dedicated minister.

Mrs. Kronborg

Mrs. Kronborg, his wife, a practical woman who shows instinctive common sense. Although she never understands her daughter Thea, she sees in Thea traits possessed by none of her other children, and she respects the girl’s reserve. She dies while Thea is on a concert tour in Germany.

Axel

Axel,

Gunnar

Gunnar,

Gus

Gus,

Charley

Charley,

Thor

Thor, and

Anna

Anna, Thea Kronborg’s brothers and sister. During the last summer she spends in Moonstone, she realizes that they are like the other citizens of the town: commonplace, smug, and narrow-minded.

Tilly Kronborg

Tilly Kronborg, Thea’s well-meaning but garrulous and silly aunt, always confident that her niece is marked for greatness. The last Kronborg left in Moonstone, she takes innocent delight in Thea’s fame and basks comfortably in that reflected glory.

Lily Fisher

Lily Fisher, Thea Kronborg’s girlhood musical rival. Lily represents Moonstone’s idea of culture, a pretty song sung by a pretty girl.

Mrs. Livery Johnson

Mrs. Livery Johnson, a Baptist, a member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the arbiter of culture in Moonstone.

Mrs. Lorch

Mrs. Lorch, the motherly landlady with whom Thea Kronborg lives during her first winter in Chicago.

Mrs. Andersen

Mrs. Andersen, Mrs. Lorch’s daughter, who tries to interest Thea Kronborg in art museums and other cultural centers in Chicago. Acting on her advice, Thea goes to the Art Institute, where she finds a picture that moves her subtly; it is titled The Song of the Lark.

Oliver Landry

Oliver Landry, a musician, Thea Kronborg’s friend and for a time her accompanist.