Hope couldn't help laughing at this frankness.
Dolly laughed a little too, but she was quite in earnest, nevertheless, and began another string of questions,—what Hope saw, where she went, what she bought, etc.
Hope's answers did not open the field of entertainment that Dolly expected, for galleries and museums and music and quiet pleasures of that kind were not what Dolly was thinking of in connection with Paris and London.
"But didn't you visit people, and go to theatres and things, and have fun?" she asked at length.
Hope smiled a queer, amused smile that Dolly didn't understand, as she answered: "I didn't go abroad to have fun of that sort, but I had a beautiful time."
"I suppose you had a beautiful time slaving away at that violin."
"I did, indeed," answered Hope, laughing outright.
"What a lot you must know about a violin!"
"I? Oh, no, no!"
Hope at that instant was putting a pile of music upon a little music-rack. Dolly caught sight of the upper sheet.