‘Was that Phœbe?’ she said. ‘You have a clear, good touch, my dear, as they used to say I had when I was at school at Bath. Play another of your pieces, my dear.’
‘I am ready now, Augusta,’ said Juliana, advancing.
Little girls were not allowed at the piano when officers might be coming in from the dining-room, so Maria’s face became vacant again, for Juliana’s music awoke no echoes within her.
Phœbe beckoned her to a remote ottoman, a receptacle for the newspapers of the week, and kept her turning over the Illustrated News, an unfailing resource with her, but powerless to occupy Bertha after the first Saturday; and Bertha, turning a deaf ear to the assurance that there was something very entertaining about a tiger-hunt, stood, solely occupied by eyeing Juliana.
Was she studying ‘come-out’ life as she watched her sisters surrounded by the gentlemen who presently herded round the piano?
It was nearly the moment when the young ones were bound to withdraw, when Mervyn, coming hastily up to their ottoman, had almost stumbled over Maria’s foot.
‘Beg pardon. Oh, it was only you! What a cow it is!’ said he, tossing over the papers.
‘What are you looking for, Mervyn?’ asked Phœbe.
‘An advertisement—Bell’s Life for the 3rd. That rascal, Mears, must have taken it.’
She found it for him, and likewise the advertisement, which he, missing once, was giving up in despair.