lay well, to outplay Cecilia, to be independent of her and
play her own accompaniments.

"Lift your fingers, Split. You must raise your wrist," came in an easy
tone of command. "Repeat that, please. Again. There goes the dime
again! If you'd keep your wrist steady, it wouldn't fall off. No; you're
playing altogether too fast. Slowly! slow-ly! Bad fingering! bad
fingering! Wretched! Wait, I'll mark it for you."

With her nicely pointed long pencil, Sissy, a martinet for technic,
assumed all the airs of her own professor and prepared to explain the
obvious.

"No, you don't!" Irene's hand shot out from the keys to the sheet-music,
scattering the dimes; her wide-spread fingers covered the spot Sissy
contemplated adorning with prettily made figures.

"Don't what?" asked Sissy.

"Oh, Miss Innocence! Don't be so affected, that's what! Don't put on so
many airs! Don't pretend you know it all, Sis Madigan!"

"Why, Split! Do you s'pose I _want_ to put the fingering down?"

"You do; but you sha'n't!" exclaimed Split, savagely.

"All I want to do is to help you," said Sissy, with well-bred
forbearance.

"Well, don't show off, then."

Split withdrew her hand, and the lesson proceeded.

"I'll play your piece for you first, Split, to show you how it ought to
go." Sissy rose, her calico rustling, to change the professorial chair
for the stool of the demonstrator.

But Split sat like a rock.

"Professor Trask always does, Split."

There was an abused note in Sissy's voice that deceived her sister. In
the perennial game of "bluff" these two played, each was alert to detect
a weakness in the other; and Irene thought she had found one now.
Ignoring her professor, she placed "In Sweet Dreams" on the rack before
her, and gaily and loudly, and very badly, began to play.

Sissy rose majestically. Her correct ear was outraged, her small mouth
was shut tight. Without a word she resigned her post and made for the
door. She had quite reached it before Split capitulated.

"Play it, then, you mean thing," she cried, flouncing off the stool, "if
it's going to do you any good!"

Sissy hardened. She had a way of becoming adamant on rare occasions that
really struck terror to Split's facile soul, which resented a grudge
promptly and as promptly forgot all about it.

"I don't care to play it," said Sissy, loftily.

"Well--I want you to--now."

[Illustration:
"'Play it, then, you mean thing,' she cried, ... 'if
i