The old lady rang the bell, and requested that Miss Macdonald might be told that it was time for her lesson and that Mr. Lisle had arrived. During the brief interval that ensued the music-master looked furtively round the room, as if he had never seen it before. It seemed to him almost as if he looked at it with different eyes, and read Miss Crawford's life in it. It was a prim, light-colored drawing-room, adorned with many trifles which were interesting as indications of patience and curious in point of taste. There was a great deal of worsted work, and still more of crochet. Everything that could possibly stand on a mat stood on a mat, and other mats lay disconsolately about, waiting as cabmen wait for a fare. Every piece of furniture was carefully arranged with a view to supporting the greatest possible number of anti-macassars. There were water-color paintings on the walls, and bouquets of wax flowers bloomed gayly under glass shades on every table. There were screens, cushions, pen-wipers. Bertie calculated that Miss Crawford's drawing-room might yield several quarts of beads. He had seen all these things many times, but they had acquired a new meaning and interest that day. Miss Macdonald appeared, and Miss Crawford seated herself on a pink rose, about the size of a Jersey cabbage, with two colossal buds, and rested her tired back against a similar group. At the first notes of the piano her watchful and smiling face relaxed and she nodded wearily in the background. It did not matter much. The young master was grave, silent, patient, conscientious. In fact, it did not matter at all. Having slept through the earlier lessons, the schoolmistress might well sleep through this. It was rather a pity that, instead of taking a placid and unbroken rest on the sofa, she sat stiffly on a worked chair and started into uneasy wakefulness between the lessons, dismissing one girl and sending for the next with infinite politeness and propriety. At last she said, "And will you have the kindness to tell Miss Nash?" Bertie sat turning over a piece of music till the sound of the opening door told him that his pupil had arrived. Then he rose and looked in her direction, but avoided her eyes. There was no school-girl slovenliness about Emmeline Nash. Her gray dress was fresh and neat, a tiny bunch of spring flowers was fastened in it, a ribbon of delicate blue was round her neck. As she came forward with a slight flush on her cheek, her head carried defiantly and the sunlight shining on her pale hair, Miss Crawford said to herself that really she was a stylish girl, ladylike and pretty. Her schoolfellows declared that Emmeline always went about with her mouth hanging open. But that day the parted lips had an innocent expression of wonder and expectation.