They met the next day at the door of the music-room, the one coming out, the other just about to enter.

Evelyn was looking pale and agitated, Lulu flushed and angry, having been scolded—­unjustly, she thought—­by Miss Diana, who accused her of slighting a drawing with which she had really taken great pains.

“Oh, Lu, do be careful; the slightest mistake angers him to-day,” whispered Evelyn in passing.

“It always does,” said Lulu, gloomily.

“But you will be on your guard?” Lulu nodded, and stepped into the room with a “Good-morning, signor.”

“Good-morning, mees; you are von leetle moment too late.”

Deigning no reply to that, Lulu took possession of the piano-stool, spread out her music and began playing.

“Dat ish too fast, mees; you should not make it like to a galop or a valtz,” stormed the little man.

Without a word Lulu changed her time, playing very slowly.

“Now you make von funeral-dirge,” he cried fiercely.  “Play in de true time or I vill—­”

“You will what?” she asked coolly, as he paused without finishing his sentence.

“Report you, mees.”

She merely flashed a scornful glance at him out of her great dark eyes, and went on with her exercise, really doing her best to play it correctly.

But nothing would please him; he continued to fume and scold till he succeeded in confusing the child so that she blundered sadly.

“You are striking false notes, mees,” he roared; “I will not have it!” And with the words a stinging blow from his pointer fell across the fingers of her left hand.

Instantly Lulu was on her feet, white with concentrated passion; the next she had seized the music-book in both hands and dealt her cowardly assailant a blow with it on the side of his head and face that nearly stunned him and gave him a black eye for a week.

At the same moment the piano-stool came down upon the floor with a crash, upset by her in whirling round to reach him, and before he knew what had happened she was out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

Never had she been in a greater fury of passion.  She rushed out into the grounds and paced rapidly to and fro for several minutes, trying to regain sufficient calmness to dare venture into the schoolroom; not caring to appear there either for some minutes, as the hour for her music-lesson had not yet fully expired.

When she thought it had, she went quietly in and took her accustomed seat.

Miss Diana was busy with a recitation and took no notice; but Evelyn, glancing at Lulu’s flushed face and sparkling eyes, perceived at once that something was wrong with her.

The rules of the school, however, forbade questioning her then, and she could only wait to do so until they should be dismissed.

Another pupil had gone to Signor Foresti a moment before Lulu’s entrance into the school-room.