"What! you play those things of Bach? Well, you must know a lot!"
"No, I love a lot, and I've studied hard, that's all."
"I should say so; and here," turning over the pages, "are Mendelssohn and Beethoven and Chopin. Why, I should think you were studying to play in public. Oh! but here is something more frivolous, more in my style," pouncing upon a waltz. "Oh, I just dote on waltzes; try this now, do."
"Oh, no, not now; it is too late. We must have our lights out by ten, and it is fifteen minutes to ten this moment."
"Oh, bother!" and Dolly wrinkled up her forehead. "I hate to go to bed."
Hope's only reply to this remark was, "Then, if you'll excuse me and turn out the gas when you are ready, I'll say good-night, for I'm very tired;" and hastily retreating behind her screen, she left Dolly to her own devices.
Tired as she was, however, it was a long time before Hope could sleep. Dolly, too, lay awake for a while, thinking over the many incidents of the day. But her thoughts were not perplexed thoughts like Hope's. She had no hurt remembrance of the past to perplex her. She had not by any means entirely forgotten the little flower-girl, though she had forgotten her name; but the memory of her was a latent one, and was not for an instant stirred by her present companion's personality. Hope was quite a new acquaintance to her. It never occurred to Dolly that she had ever seen her before, unless she was really that girl whom she had seen with the Edlicotts last spring. It was one of Dolly's characteristics not to brood long over anything disagreeable; and lying there in the still darkness, and reflecting upon the incidents of the day, the little surprises and mortifications began to give way to a sense of interest and anticipation, the principal point of interest at the moment being Hope and her violin. Oddly enough, from the time that Dolly had seen Hope coming down the hall, and had received that courteous little greeting from her, she had been attracted towards her. The rather stiff politeness that had followed, if disappointing, had not been repelling, and the subsequent bedroom chat, with its revelation of musical accomplishments and foreign experiences, to say nothing of that wonderful Cremona violin, had made a fresh impression upon Dolly of such power that even Miss Marr's attractiveness became quite secondary in her mind.
Hope could not but see something of this. She was not flattered by it, however, for as she thought over it, she said to herself,—
"It is not the real Hope Benham who attracts her, but a young lady who has lived abroad, and who is rich enough to own a Cremona violin, and to play Bach and Beethoven studies upon it. If she knew that I was the girl who sold her the flowers at the Brookside station, things would be quite different."