“Then that is enough. You need not try to beat anybody. Wasn’t that the trouble with your friend that copied your answers?”
“Yes. I wouldn’t do that, of course, but there is a sort of nervousness about reciting well and making an impression on the teacher, whether you have your lesson or haven’t had a chance to get it real well. And sometimes you recite when you don’t know much.”
“I see. It is a problem, Betty. I see nothing for it but to make a good general plan, not including too much, then work it out every day the best you can. But it’s the little decisions every day that count in anything. I have it in business too. And I wouldn’t let down altogether in the ideals of hard work and getting lessons. It’s chiefly in putting your mind on it when you are working, isn’t it?”
“A good deal.”
“You would really like to be in that orchestra, wouldn’t you, Betty?”
Betty looked up at the smiling face of her father, who wasn’t so very old, after all. He had a fellow feeling!
“Didn’t you take a few violin lessons once?”
“Yes, when that college girl taught a class for a while, but I can’t play, Father. They wouldn’t look at me for the orchestra!”
“Probably not now; but if you took more lessons, and of a proper teacher this summer–how about it?”
“I might,” said Betty, dropping her flowers in her lap to clap her hands. “Would you let me?”