“Miss Furness won’t make me afraid of her any more,” I said to myself. “I’ve mastered her secret; and Achille dare not tell of me, for fear of betraying himself. I’ll serve them both out.”
I lay nursing up my wrath, till I felt obliged to cry again; and then, when I had done crying, I again picked up my wrath and nursed it; and so on, backwards and forwards, till all at once I started up, for there was one of those hideous German brass bands. A set of towy-headed, sleepy-faced boys were blaring out “Partant pour la Syrie” in the most horribly discordant manner, till James was sent to order them out of the grounds, when, to get the dreadful discords out of my head, and my mind more in tune, I took advantage of a permission lately given me by Mrs Blunt, and slipped quietly down into the drawing-room, which was now empty. Sitting down to the piano, I rattled away at “La Pluie de Perles” until my fingers ached again, when I took up something of Talexy’s, and I suppose it was all emotional, for I’m sure I never played so brilliantly before in my life—the notes seemed quite to sparkle under my fingers, and I kept on rattling away till I was tired, and dashed off the great finishing chords at the end.
Then I slammed down the piano, spun myself round upon the stool, and jumping up, I was about to make a pirouette, and what we girls, in happy, innocent, thoughtless days, used to call a cheese, when I gave a start, for Mrs Blunt was standing there with a lady in walking costume, who was smilingly inspecting me through a great gold eyeglass, just as if I were some curiosity; and, of course, instead of the pirouette, I made one of the spun-out, graceful obeisances so popular at the Cedars.
“One of our pupils,” said Mrs Blunt, in her most polite tones. “Mrs Campanelle Brassey—Miss Bozerne. Young and high-spirited, you see,” she continued, smiling benignantly upon me, just in the way that she had done when mamma was with me, and never since. “Young, happy, and light-hearted. Just at that age when life has no cares,”—couldn’t I have pinched her. “She adores melody—quite a daughter of the Muses.”
“Charming gyirl,” said the lady, smiling. “Sweetly featured—so gazelle-eyed. Most unaccountably like my Euphemia.”
“Indeed!” said Mrs Blunt. “How singular! They will, no doubt, be like sisters.”
“Charming for Euphemia, to be sure,” said Mrs Campanelle Brassey. “It will make the change from home so pleasant, and she will not pine.”
“No fear of that,” said Mrs Blunt—“ours is too home-like an abode.”
“No doubt,” said Mrs Campanelle Brassey. “And then there is that other charming gyirl—the one with the sweet, high-spirited features—the one you just now showed me. Lady—Lady—Lady Somebody’s daughter.”
“Lady Fitzacre’s,” said Mrs Blunt.