"Lottie's getting swollen head!" agreed Gertie Raeburn.
If Lottie's motives were mixed, to do her justice she certainly worked very hard in her new capacity as choir-mistress. She was as zealous as a Parliamentary whip in making her chorus attend practices, and drilling them while they were there. Most of the girls found her a harder taskmaster than Mr. Hiller, the singing teacher, and she indulged in a running fire of comments on their performance completely at variance with his suave suggestions.
"Now then, heads up!" she would say. "You all stand with your noses in your books like a set of dolls that have lost their saw-dust! We'll take that verse again, and put a little more spirit into it. Can't you sing louder? I suppose you've learnt that cres. stands for crescendo? Then please remember that the signs mean something, and don't drone away like a set of Buddhist lamas intoning a chant!"
And the girls would laugh, for they rather enjoyed her racy remarks, even though they were delivered at their expense. Lottie, in the flush of her popularity, could not resist pressing her triumph over Mildred. She invited her to a practice one day, and enjoyed showing her authority over her pupils before her rival. Having exhibited their docility to her utmost satisfaction, she dismissed them, and turned carelessly to Mildred.
"Not such a bad little business for a beginning!" she remarked. "The Coll. will take its right place at the Eisteddfod, I fancy."
"I hope so, I'm sure," returned Mildred, without enthusiasm.
"Oh, you'll see it'll come out top side! Now tell me candidly what you think of this part song."
"Do you really want my candid opinion?"
"Of course I do!"
"Then I think everything's wrong with it. In the first place, the second sopranos are out of tune continually. You hurry the time too much in the middle, and drag it towards the end, and when you urge the girls to sing crescendo, you let them shout in the most atrocious fashion—like street-singers! There's nothing artistic about it at all."