, about my voice.
That's it," she said, catching sight of her own photograph. "You've
been frowning over that photograph, thinking"--her eyes went up to her
mother's portrait--"all sorts of nonsense, making yourself miserable,
reproaching yourself that you do not teach me to vocalise, a thing which
you know nothing about, or lamenting that you are not rich enough to
send me abroad, where I could be taught it." Then, with a pensive note
in her voice which did not escape him, she said--

"As if there was any need to worry. I'm not twenty yet."

"No, you're not twenty yet, but you will be very soon. Time is going
by."

"Well, let time go by, I don't care. I'm happy here with you, father. I
wouldn't go away, even if you had the money to send me. I intend to help
you make the concerts a success. Then, perhaps, I shall go abroad."

His heart went out to his daughter. He was proud of her, and her fine
nature was a compensation for many disappointments. He took her in his
arms and thankfully kissed her. She was touched by his emotion, and
conscious that her eyes were threatening tears, she said--

"I can't stand this gloom. I must have some light. I'll go and get a
lamp. Besides, it must be getting late. I wonder what kind of a dinner
Margaret has got for us. I left it to her. A good one, I hope. I'm
ravenous."

A few minutes after she appeared in the doorway, holding a lamp high,
the light showing over her white skin and pale gold hair. "Margaret has
excelled herself--boiled haddock, melted butter, a neck of mutton and a
rice pudding. And I have brought back a bag of oranges. Now come,
darling. You've done enough to that virginal. Run upstairs and wash your
hands, and remember that the fish is getting cold."

She was waiting for him in the little back room--the lamp was on the
table--and when they sat down to dinner she began the tale of her day's
doings. But she hadn't got farther than the fact that they had asked her
to stay to tea at Queen's Gate, when her tongue, which always went quite
as fast as her thoughts, betrayed her, and before she was aware, she had
said that her pupil's sister was in delicate health and that the family
was going abroad for the winter. This was equivalent to saying she had
lost a pupil. So she rattled on, hoping that her father would not
perceive the inference.

"There doesn't seem to be much luck about at present," he said. "That's
the third pupil you've lost this month."

"It is unfor