“As if there was any need to worry.  I’m not twenty yet.”

“No, you’re not twenty yet, but you will be very soon.  Time is going by.”

“Well, let time go by, I don’t care.  I’m happy here with you, father.  I wouldn’t go away, even if you had the money to send me.  I intend to help you make the concerts a success.  Then, perhaps, I shall go abroad.”

His heart went out to his daughter.  He was proud of her, and her fine nature was a compensation for many disappointments.  He took her in his arms and thankfully kissed her.  She was touched by his emotion, and conscious that her eyes were threatening tears, she said—­

“I can’t stand this gloom.  I must have some light.  I’ll go and get a lamp.  Besides, it must be getting late.  I wonder what kind of a dinner Margaret has got for us.  I left it to her.  A good one, I hope.  I’m ravenous.”

A few minutes after she appeared in the doorway, holding a lamp high, the light showing over her white skin and pale gold hair.  “Margaret has excelled herself—­boiled haddock, melted butter, a neck of mutton and a rice pudding.  And I have brought back a bag of oranges.  Now come, darling.  You’ve done enough to that virginal.  Run upstairs and wash your hands, and remember that the fish is getting cold.”

She was waiting for him in the little back room—­the lamp was on the table—­and when they sat down to dinner she began the tale of her day’s doings.  But she hadn’t got farther than the fact that they had asked her to stay to tea at Queen’s Gate, when her tongue, which always went quite as fast as her thoughts, betrayed her, and before she was aware, she had said that her pupil’s sister was in delicate health and that the family was going abroad for the winter.  This was equivalent to saying she had lost a pupil.  So she rattled on, hoping that her father would not perceive the inference.

“There doesn’t seem to be much luck about at present,” he said.  “That’s the third pupil you’ve lost this month.”

“It is unfortunate ... and just as I was beginning to save a little money.”  A moment after her voice had recovered its habitual note of cheerfulness.  “Then what do you think I did?  An idea struck me; I took the omnibus and went straight to St. James’s Hall.”

“To St. James’s Hall!”

“Yes, you old darling; don’t you know that M. Desjardin, the French composer, has come over to give a series of concerts.  I thought I should like him to try my voice.”

“You didn’t see him?”

“Yes I did.  When I asked for him, the clerk said, pointing to a gentleman coming downstairs, that is Monsieur Desjardin.  I went straight up to him, and told him who I was, and asked him if he had ever heard of mother.  Just fancy, he never had; but he seemed interested when I told him that everyone said my voice was as good as mother’s.  We went into the hall, and I sang to him.”

“What did you sing to him?”