“She exacted half-an-hour a day at the piano, from each of the little girls.”
She kept her thoughts away from it only by desperate expedients, such as sternly reminding herself that her time at present was paid for by Judge Lomax, and therefore belonged absolutely to him. Later in the [p77] day it would be a different matter, but now to her duties,—
“Pauline, Lynn, get out your pens this moment;—no, Muffie, you must write in pencil, you have spoiled the cloth with the ink you have spilled;—yes, yes, in a minute; Max, you sit here, dear, on the nice high chair, and then you can reach beautifully.”
Max firmly refused the nice high chair, which he long had considered beneath the dignity of a man with a pocket, and had to be established as usual on two or three fat music books placed on a “grown-up” chair.
There were no regular lessons during the holidays, but Mrs. Lomax having said vaguely, at leaving, that she hoped the little girls would not have quite forgotten their scales, and how to write and read, before the governess returned, Miss Bibby had considered it her duty to see to these things.
So she exacted half an hour a day at the piano from each of the little girls, and faithfully sat beside them saying: “One, two, three, four, don’t droop your wrists, Lynn; one, two, three, four, count, Pauline; one, two, three, four, thumb under, Muffie.”
And she established two letter hours a week, and saw to it that the children wrote to their parents in their best hand for one page, though she allowed a “go-as-you-please” for the other pages, judging that that would give [p78] most pleasure across the wash of the Pacific seas.
“My dearest Mummie and Dad,” wrote Pauline this afternoon, “I played my Serenade through yesterday without one single solitary mistake.”