"Thanks," she said. "I have always worn my hair like this, and at my age, have no intention of altering it," and leaving Mrs. Tully protesting vehemently at such false modesty, she went past her, into her own room, and shut the door.
She sat down by the window to sew. But her hands soon fell to her lap, and with her eyes on the backs of the neighbouring houses, she continued her interrupted reflections. First, though, she threw a quick, sarcastic side-glance on her mother and herself. As so often before, when she had wanted to pin her mother's attention to a subject, the centre of interest had shifted in spite of her efforts, and they had ended far from where they had begun: further, she, Johanna, had a way, when it came to the point, not of asking advice or of faithfully discussing a question, but of emphatically giving her opinion, or of stating what she considered to be the facts of the case.
From an odd mixture of experience and self-distrust, Johanna had, however, acquired a certain faith in her mother's opinions—these blind, instinctive hits and guesses, which often proved right where Johanna's carefully drawn conclusions failed. Here, once more, her mother's idea had broken in upon her like a flash of light, even though she could not immediately bring herself to accept it. Maurice and Ephie! She could not reconcile the one with the other. Yet what if the child were fretting? What if he did not care? A pang shot through her at the thought that any outsider should have the power to make Ephie suffer. Oh, she would make him care!—she would talk to him as he had never been talked to in his life before.
The sisters' rooms were connected by a door; and, gradually, in spite of her preoccupation, Johanna could not but become aware how brokenly Ephie was practising. Coaxing, encouragement, and sometimes even severity, were all, it is true, necessary to pilot Ephie through the two hours that were her daily task; but as idle as to-day, she had never been. What could she be doing? Johanna listened intently, but not a sound came from the room; and impelled by a curiosity to observe her sister in a new light, she rose and opened the door.
Ephie was standing with her back to it, staring out of the window, and supporting herself on the table by her violin, which she held by the neck. At Johanna's entrance, she started, grew very red, and hastily raised the instrument to her shoulder.
"What are you doing, Ephie? You are wasting a great deal of time," said Johanna in the tone of mild reproof that came natural to her, in speaking to her little sister. "Is anything the matter to-day? If you don't practice better than this, you won't have the ETUDE ready by Friday, and Herr Becker will make you take it again—for the third time."
"He can if he likes. I guess I don't care," said Ephie nonchalantly, and, seizing the opportunity offered for a break, she sat down, and laid bow and fiddle on the table.
"Have you remembered everything he pointed out to you at your last lesson?" asked Johanna, going over to the music-stand, and peering at the pages with her shortsighted eyes. "Let me see—what was it now? Something about this double-stopping here, and the fingering in this position."
Ephie laughed. "Old Joan, what do you know about it?"
"Not much, dear, I admit," said Johanna pleasantly. "But try and master it, like a good girl. So you can get rid of it, and go on to something else."