“Nonsense,” said Miss Strickland firmly. “I am the best judge of whether you can play or not, and I have decided that you can. It is absurd to be afraid of people who know very little about music and have come prepared to be easily pleased. You are not afraid to play before me, and I don’t come prepared to be pleased, and do know a good deal about music.” Elsie, if she could have explained, would have said, “That’s what I’m afraid of—not pleasing you. It’s you that will care about the people.” But it was out of the question to make a statement of this kind to Miss Strickland, even if it had occurred to Elsie that it was the truth, and things seldom occurred to Elsie as the truth until after what she had been afraid of had happened. She merely repeated in an agony, “Oh, please don’t make me play! I shall break down! I know I shall break down! It would terrify me to disappoint you!” To which Miss Strickland replied, “Don’t be idiotic. I have decided upon Mendelssohn.” The school at Little Ticklington gave particularly good concerts. Besides the parents, the Mayor sometimes appeared with several Town Councillors, the Vicar, who was an Archdeacon, and various people in the neighbourhood who thought Education ought to be encouraged and that their presence at School Concerts encouraged it. Miss Strickland sat at the back of the hall, so that she could hear if the songs carried. She had prepared all the girls carefully, and Miss Saunders, who lived in the School, would supervise them on the platform. Miss Strickland had not seen Elsie for three days. At her last lesson she had played the Mendelssohn uncommonly well, but she had annoyed Miss Strickland by opening and shutting her mouth like a fish. Miss Strickland had told her so, and Elsie had then shut her mouth and kept it shut, but Miss Strickland had still been annoyed. She was conscious of something in the child that was not consenting to her will, and this was very unusual. Children must play at Concerts. Elsie was now fourteen, she was a great big girl, and the Mendelssohn was very easy. Miss Strickland told herself these reassuring facts several times before the curtain swung vacillatingly back for the first girl to perform. “Besides,” Miss Strickland hastily informed herself, “I take no special interest in Elsie.” The first girl performed as first girls generally do. She was chosen for her hardihood and she had a little over-estimated it. Still she banged pleasantly away, and while she was too nervous to remember any of the finer shades of Miss Strickland’s careful teaching, she played no wrong notes, and covered up the weakness of her execution with that merciful solvent of pianoforte puzzles, the loud pedal.