"Oh, Laura Scollard, you are enough to make Jeunesse Dorée laugh! Wouldn't you rather be sensible than clever? What can you mean by impertinent music? Are you trying to say pertinent?" cried Happie, forgetting her forebodings in a peal of such merry laughter that it won a glance from the lady of the propped-up-novel.
"It doesn't matter," said Laura, walking away towards the piano with sufficient dignity to have compensated for Mrs. Malaprop's crooked tongue.
Laura sat thoughtful before the key board for a while, then began to strike chords reminiscent of the Lohengrin Wedding March, at the same time singing below her breath words that were so satisfactory to herself that her color mounted in the pride of conscious poesy.
Margery came down from Mrs. Stewart's just when this composition, of which she was innocently unsuspicious, was well under way.
"Laura, dear," she said pausing at the piano. "Mrs. Stewart's pianist has not come; she has no music for her class this afternoon. Won't you come up and play for her? I told her I was sure that we could spare you here."
"Oh, Margery, no, I don't want to! I should despise playing dance music the whole afternoon. I am doing something important, too," Laura protested, instantly clouding.
"Laura, my dear! How can you say you don't want to help Mrs. Stewart, when she is taking Polly and Penny into her class so kindly!" rebuked Margery.
"But not me!" cried Laura, betraying the feeling of some days' standing. "Besides, she told you she took our children for Aunt Keren's sake. I should think that let us off from caring about it."
"Laura! Nothing would let us off, as you put it, from our share of the obligation. It is Polly and Penny, not Aunt Keren, who are benefited by the dancing class. In any case, if there were no Polly and Penny, wouldn't you be glad to do a kindness for sweet little Mrs. Stewart? Dear Laura, you positively must fight hard against selfishness; be at least as ready to give as to receive. And, however you feel about playing for Mrs. Stewart this afternoon, I must insist on your doing so."