Her lap was full of pretty new cloth which she was making into dresses, and one of the twins was riding on the rockers of her chair, and one was whistling, shrilly. My mother rocked slowly that there might not be an accident. Most people would have thought that she was only a mother, but at that precise moment she was, also, an express train coming into a station, and I was a passenger waiting to get aboard.
"I think I'll get Madame Tomaso to give Rhoda lessons," she said. "We might as well have the best teacher in town. Dad had the best for me when I was a child. It is the first step which always counts."
The whistle sounded again, and two passengers climbed into the rocker behind my mother's back. We were a very tight fit for the chair. She sat a little forward in a meek way, so as to make room for our toes, and rocked more slowly. The train was going uphill carrying a heavy load.
When she was consulted on the subject, Madame Tomaso proved to be very glad to give me lessons. For some reason or other it had been a poor season for her, either because there were only a few little girls musically inclined in the town, or because, which seems more probable, she had a name for severity. She appeared very amiable, however, the first morning that she entered our house. She drew me to her, with quite a motherly hand, when I came bashfully into the parlor to meet her.
"So this is the small Miss," she said, in a terrifying voice like the ogre's. "And she loves the music? It is well."
She shook hands with me very hard. She had on a dress trimmed with bits of black glass,—I always hated jet afterwards,—and a red silk collar which exactly matched the hearty red in her cheeks. Her hair was black, and her eyes were black. I did not quite like the way that she looked at me. I wondered if she ate little children.
"She is so bright," my mother declared, fondly, pushing the hair back from my forehead. "Stand up straight, Rhoda. You will find that she learns very quickly, Madame Tomaso."
"So?" the ogress answered, in an absent manner.
She was looking at the piano-stool and at me. She was evidently wild to begin, and had not much time to spare for motherly confidences.