“Well, at any rate,” thought Pennie with a sigh of relief, “I shall never be able to dance well enough to do that; that’s one comfort.”
The class lasted two long hours and finished by a march round the room, the tallest pupil at the head and the shortest bringing up the rear.
“Why,” asked Monsieur, “do we begin with the left foot?”
And the old pupil immediately answered:
“Because it is the military rule.”
This impressed Pennie a good deal; but afterwards when she found that Monsieur never failed to ask this before the march began, the effect wore off, and she even felt equal to answering him herself. But that was after many lessons had passed; at present everything seemed strange and difficult, and she was so nervous that she hardly knew her right foot from her left.
After the marching was over it was time for Monsieur to put his fiddle into its case, and to say with a graceful sweeping bow, “Good evening, young ladies!” A joyful sound to Pennie. In a minute she had torn off her mittens, changed her shoes, and was on her way back to Miss Unity’s house.
“It was much worse than I thought it would be,” she said as she sat at tea with her godmother; “but I sha’n’t see any of them again for another week, that’s one good thing.”