"Why get any notes? Play one of your own compositions," said Flora, only half suppressing a sneer.
"I do not know even those by heart," Kitty answered, as she left the room.
She returned in a few moments with a sheet of music. As she seated herself upon the piano-stool, which Fräulein von Giese readily vacated for her, Flora took up the notes she had placed on the music-desk, and asked, pointing to the title-page, "Who is the composer?"
"Why, did you not ask me to play something of my own?"
"Certainly; but you have made a mistake: this is printed music——"
"True: it is printed."
"Heavens! how did that happen?" Flora asked, hastily, surprised out of her usual self-possession.
"How does it happen, Floss, that your productions are printed?" Kitty asked, in jest, as she placed her beautiful slender hands upon the keys. "I will tell you how I was so honoured," she added, soothingly. Flora had evidently taken her reply very much amiss, for she had drawn herself up with an offended air. "My teachers had this fantasia printed privately, to give me a pleasant surprise upon my birthday."
"Ah, indeed! that I can understand," Flora said, putting the notes back upon the desk.
Henriette, who had meanwhile been standing behind Kitty, pointed over her shoulder to the title-page. "Do not let her impose upon you, Flora!" she exclaimed, with a laugh. "Look there!—Schott & Sons,—that firm would hardly lend itself to a birthday jest. Kitty, tell the truth," she begged, with beaming eyes. "Your compositions are popular,—there is a sale for them?"