"Ah yes; your mother said something about it."
"And yet she won't answer the bells," said Rosie, "and mother's asthma is worse, so I don't know whether I shall be able to take my lesson to-day, Mr. Lancelot. I'm so sorry, because it's the last."
Rosie probably did not intend the ambiguity of the phrase. There was real regret in her voice.
"Do you like learning, then?" said Lancelot, softened, for the first time, towards his pupil. His nerves seemed strangely flaccid to-day. He did not at all feel the relief he should have felt at foregoing his daily infliction.
"Ever so much, sir. I know I laugh too much, sometimes; but I don't mean it, sir. I suppose I couldn't go on with the lessons after you leave here?" She looked at him wistfully.
"Well"—he had crumbled the toast all to little pieces now—"I don't quite know. Perhaps I shan't go away after all."
Rosie's face lit up. "Oh, I'll tell mother," she exclaimed joyously.
"No, don't tell her yet; I haven't quite settled. But if I stay—of course the lessons can go on as before."
"Oh, I do hope you'll stay," said Rosie, and went out of the room with airy steps, evidently bent on disregarding his prohibition, if, indeed, it had penetrated to her consciousness.
Lancelot made no pretence of eating breakfast; he had it removed, and then fished out his comic opera. But nothing would flow from his pen; he went over to the window, and stood thoughtfully drumming on the panes with it, and gazing at the little drab-coloured street, with its high roof of mist, along which the faded dollar continued to spin imperceptibly. Suddenly he saw Mary Ann turn the corner, and come along towards the house, carrying a big parcel and a paper bag in her ungloved hands. How buoyantly she walked! He had never before seen her move in free space, nor realised how much of the grace of a sylvan childhood remained with her still. What a pretty colour there was on her cheeks, too!