I was very fond of music, so I really enjoyed it, and for once forgot that I was not the centre of it all.
“How nice!” I exclaimed heartily, when it was over. And Lady Honor smiled at me when I said this, in her very kindest way; for no one who does not know Lady Honor pretty well can fancy how kind her smiles sometimes are. “How have you learnt to play the organ so beautifully? It takes a lot of time, doesn’t it?” I said to Evey.
“Yes,” said Lady Honor, replying for her. “But I have always found in my life, my dear Connie, that it is the people who have the most to do who do the most. Think that over—you’ll find it’s not an Irish bull, though it sounds like one.”
I was not so pleased at this speech.
“She is thinking that I don’t do much, I can see,” I began fancying. But Evey broke in upon my disagreeable thoughts.
“I don’t think it’s any credit to me that I can play the organ a little, truly,” she said. “I’ve had such good lessons every year in London, where we never really have anything to do except things like that. And at Southsea I was always allowed to practise on the church organ. We have a harmonium of our own,” she went on to me. “It’s very nice, but of course not as nice as this dear organ,” and she touched the keys lovingly. Mr Bickersteth’s organ was a very nice one indeed.
And, a few minutes after that, we went home. The Whytes, all six of them, escorted me all the way, as Lady Honor’s is not far from our house, and I showed them the short cut across the fields to the Yew Trees through a turnstile close to us. It was very kind of them all the same, for they had to hurry a good deal after that to get home in time to send the servants to church.
I found mamma by herself in the study. We don’t use the drawing-room on Sunday.
“Well, darling?” she said. I knew that meant a tender inquiry as to how I had enjoyed myself, but a rather contradictory mood had come over me.
