"So I've always been told," said Lallie. "You see it has never been strained."
"Did you say trained or strained?"
Lallie laughed.
"Oh, it's plenty of training it's had, but perhaps I haven't profited as much as I might have done. Are you fond of music, Miss Foster?"
"I can't say that I am. I dislike every sort of loud music, and all stringed instruments seem to me so very thrummy."
To this Lallie made no reply, but took her roll of lace out of her bag and began to work in perfect silence. Miss Foster picked up the Spectator and tried to read it, but could not concentrate her attention. Against her will she was forced to glance from time to time at the quiet figure beside her; at the deft white hands that moved so swiftly and silently; at the beautiful work that grew so fast beneath their ministrations. Like Tony, Lallie's silence irritated her. If only the girl had chattered she would have had a grievance.
"You were out with Mrs. Wentworth this afternoon, I think you said?" Miss Foster remarked at last.
"Yes, Miss Foster; she took me to see Pris and Prue at their dancing. Oh, it was lovely! Pris is just like a big soft india-rubber ball, and bounds up and down in perfect time, and looks the incarnation of gleeful enjoyment. And then Mrs. Wentworth insisted on my going back to tea with her, for they were arranging about the Musical Society, and she thought I might help. The organist is a nice man! That's how it was I couldn't be here to welcome you."
"The practises are a great nuisance," Miss Foster said. "The boys have so much to do, it really is not fair to make them practise in their scanty playtime."
"But music's good for them," argued Lallie; "and it's not a mental strain."