"Try not to take a dislike to Miss Foster at the very first, Lallie," Tony pleaded. "She's a good sort really; and perhaps I ought to have written to tell her you had come."
"It would have been better to break it to her gently," Lallie responded drily.
Tony crossed the room slowly, pausing on the threshold.
"I fear I must ask you to keep the door shut; the boys heard you singing, and instantly every study door was opened."
"Ah, the dears!" cried Lallie delighted. "Do let me have them all in, and I'll sing them something they'd really like."
Tony shook his head.
"They must do their work, and I must do mine. Mind, you are to come into the study if you are cold."
As Tony crossed the hall even the shut door could not drown the cheerful strains of that most jubilant of jigs, "Rory O'More," and he felt a wild impulse to dance a pas seul there and then. However, he sternly fastened the swing door, shut himself into his study, and tried to forget the brilliant little rose-and-silver figure with the wistful Greuze face. Over his mantel-piece hung an engraving of "La cruche cassée," bought some years ago because of its likeness to Lallie. He shook his head at it now, turned his back upon it, and sat down at his table. Val, who liked music, went to the door and whined to get out, but Tony unsympathetically bade him get into his basket again, and gave his own attention to the bundles of white paper that Lallie had impertinently dubbed "little exercise books."
When Miss Foster returned Lallie was singing "All round my hat I will wear a green garland," and accompanying herself upon the harp. She finished the song and then went and sat beside Miss Foster on the sofa.
"You have a very strong voice, Miss Clonmell," Miss Foster remarked, gazing with astonished disfavour at the rose-and-silver garment.