Nobody else was there when Sally and Laetitia Wilson were counting four, and beginning too soon, and having to go back and begin all over again, and missing a bar, and knocking down their music-stands when they had to turn over quick. So nobody went mad. Mamma had gone to an anti-vaccination meeting, and Athene had gone to stay over Bank Holiday at Leighton Buzzard, and the boys had gone to skate, and papa was in his study and didn't matter, and they had the drawing-room to themselves. Oh dear, how very often they did count four, to be sure! Sally was _distraite_, and wasn't paying proper attention to the music. Whenever a string had to be tightened by either, Sally introduced foreign matter. Laetitia was firm and stern (she was twenty-four, if you please!), and wouldn't respond. As thus, in a tightening-up pause: "I like him awfully, you know, Tishy. In fact, I love him. It's a pleasure to hear him come into the house. Only--one's _mother_, you know! It's the _oddity_ of it!" "Yes, dear. _Now_, are you ready?... It only clickets down because you will _not_ screw in; it's no use turning and leaving the key sloppy...." "I know, Tishy dear--teach your granny! There, I think that's right now. But it _is_ funny when it's one's mother, isn't it?" "One--two--three--four! There--you didn't begin! Remember, you've got to begin on the demisemiquaver at the end of the bar--only not too staccato, remember--and allow for the pause. Now--one, two, three, four, and you begin--in the _middle_ of four--_not_ the end. Oh dear! Now once more...." etc. You will at once see from this that Sally had lost no time in finding a confidante for the fossil's communication. An hour and a half of resolute practising makes you not at all sorry for an oasis in the counting, which you inaugurate (or whatever you do when it's an oasis) by smashing the top coal and making a great blaze. And then you go ever so close, and can talk. "Are you sure it isn't Colonel Lund's mistake? Old gentlemen get very fanciful." Thus Miss Wilson. But it seems Sally hasn't much doubt. Rather the other way round, if anything! "I thought it might be, all the way to Norland Square. Then I changed my mind coming up the hill. Of course, I don't know about mamma till I ask her. But I expect the Major's right about Mr. Fenwick." "But how does _he_ know? How do you know?" "I don't know." Sally tastes the points of a holly-leaf with her tongue-tip, discreetly, to see how sharp they are, and cogitates. "At least," she continues, "I _do_ know. He never takes his eyes off mamma from the minute he comes into the house." "Oh!" "Besides--lots of things! Oh no; as far as that goes, I should say _he_ was spooney." "I see. You're a vulgar child, all the same! But about your mother--that's the point." The vulgar child cogitates still more gravely. "I should say _now_," she says, after thinking it over, "that--only I never noticed it at the time, you know----" "That what?"