"You might go on for ever that way. Now, Tishy dear, do be kind and tell me what you heard and who said it. I should tell you. You know I should." This appeal produces concession.
"It was old Major Roper told mamma—with blue pockets under his eyes and red all over, creeks and wheezes when he speaks—do you know him?"
"No, I don't, and I don't want to. At least, I've just seen him at a distance. I could see he was purple. Our Major—Colonel Lund, you know—says he's a horrible old gossip, and you can't rely on a word he says. But what did he say?"
"Well, of course, I oughtn't to tell you this, because I promised
not. What he said was that your mother went out to be married to your father in India, and the year after he got a divorce because he was jealous of some man your mother had met on the way out."
"How old was I?"
"Gracious me, child! how should I know. He only said you were a baby in arms. Of course, you must have been, if you think of it." Lætitia here feels that possible calculations may be embarrassing, and tries to avert them. "Do let's get on to the third movement. We shall spend all the afternoon talking."
"Very well, Tishy, fire away! Oh, no; it's me." And the third movement is got under way, till we reach a pizzicato passage which Sally begins playing with the bow by mistake.
"That's pits!" says the first violin, and we have to begin again at the top of the page, and the Professor in his library wonders why on earth those girls can't play straight on. The Ancient Phœnicians are fidgeted by the jerks in the music.
But it comes to an end in time, and then Sally begins again: