When the girls went in, Beth was summoned to the big music-room. "Old Tom" was there with Dr. Centry, who came twice a week to hear the girls play. There were twelve pianos in the room, ten upright and two grand, besides Old Tom's own private grand, all old, hard, and metallic; and twelve girls hammered away on them, all together, at the same piece; but if one made a mistake, Old Tom instantly detected it, and knew which it was.
"Do ye know any music?" she asked Beth in a gruff voice with a rough Scotch accent.
"A little," Beth answered.
"What, for instance?" Old Tom pursued, looking at Beth as if she were a culprit up for judgment.
"Some of Chopin," Beth replied. "I like him best."
Old Tom raised her eyebrows incredulously. "Sit down here and play one of his compositions, if you please—here, at my piano," she said, opening the instrument.
But Beth felt intimidated for once, partly by the offensive manners of the formidable-looking old woman, her bulk and gruffness, but also because Old Tom's doubt of her powers, which she perceived, was shaking her confidence. She sat down at the piano, however, and struck a few notes; then her nerve forsook her.
"I can't play," she said. "I'm nervous."
"Humph!" snarled Old Tom. "I thought that 'ud be your Chopin! Go and learn exercises with the children in Miss Tait's class-room."
Miss Tait, acting on Old Tom's report, put Beth into one of her lower classes, and left her to practise with the beginners. When she had gone, Beth glanced at the exercises, and then began to rattle them off at such a rate that no one in the class could keep up with her. Miss Tait came hurrying back.