'How funny!'
Alison stared at this peculiar remark.
'What was that you were playing when I came in?' asked her visitor.
'A mazurka of Chopin's.'
'Shopang—who is he? And how well you sing, too.'
'I am glad you think so,' replied Alison, who sometimes accompanied herself on the old, ill-tuned, and twangling school-room piano.
'Ma will be having you to play at her weekly receptions.'
Alison shivered at the bare idea of figuring thus among such people as were there.
'Were you trained for the stage, or was your father a professional? of course he was.'
'He was not' said Alison, sharply, and at this blunt remark her soft violet eyes seemed to become hard and blue as a steel sword-blade; the little colour she had died out of her face, and she looked ten years older; but her blunt visitor—she of the frizzed, sandy hair, and snub nose—mistook the cause of her emotion, and said,