reputation
of being a very fine music-teacher, it had been arranged that the three
little girls should be numbered among his pupils. But the first day,
Lulu, on coming home from school, went to Violet with a strong protest
against being taught by him.

"Mamma Vi," she said, "the girls in his class say he has a dreadful,
dreadful temper, gets angry and abusive when they make the slightest
mistake, and sometimes strikes them with a whalebone pointer he always
has in his hand; that is, he snaps it on their fingers, and it hurts
terribly. I shouldn't mind the pain so much; but it would just make me
furious to be disgraced by a blow from anybody, especially a man--unless
it were papa, who would have a right, of course," she added, with a vivid
blush. "So, Mamma Vi, please save me from having him for my teacher."

Violet looked much perplexed and disturbed. "Lulu, dear, it doesn't rest
with me to decide the matter, you know," she said, in a soothing,
sympathetic tone; "if it did, I should at once say you need not. But I
will speak to grandpa and mamma about it."

"Well, Mamma Vi, if I must try it, won't you tell him beforehand that he
is never to strike me? If he does, I'll not be able to restrain myself
and I'll strike him back; I just know I shall. And then we'll all be
sorry I was forced to take lessons of him."

"Oh, Lulu, my dear child, I hope you would never do that!" cried Violet
in distress. "How would your father feel? what would he say when he heard
of it?"

"I don't know, Mamma Vi, but I don't believe he would allow that man to
strike me; and I dare say he would think I served him right if I struck
him back. However, I don't mean to be understood as having formed the
deliberate purpose of doing so; only I feel that that's what I should do
without waiting a second to think."

Violet thought it altogether likely, and after a moment's cogitation
promised that the signor should be told that he could have Lulu for a
pupil only with the distinct understanding that he was never, on any
account, to give her a blow.

"And, Lulu, dear," she added entreatingly, "you will try not to furnish
him the slightest excuse for punishing you, will you not?"

"Yes, Mamma Vi; but I do want to escape taking lessons of him, for fear
we might fall out and have a fight," returned the little girl, laughing
to keep from showing that she was almost ready to cry with vexation at
the very idea of being compelled to become a pupil of the