The season was beginning, the little place was already full of visitors, and Beth used to stand at the dining-room window while Mrs. Caldwell was reading aloud on Sunday evenings, and watch the congregation stream out of the church at the end of the road, and suffer agonies because of the torments that awaited them all, including her mother, brothers and sisters, Harriet in the kitchen, and Mrs. Davy at Orchard House opposite – everybody, indeed, except Aunt Victoria – in a future state. Out on the cliffs in the summer evenings, when great dark masses of cloud tinged with crimson were piled to the zenith at sundown, and coldly reflected in the dark waters of the bay, she saw the destination of the world; she heard cries of torment, too, in the plash of breaking waves and the unceasing roar of the sea; and as she watched the visitors lounging about in bright dresses, laughing and talking, careless of their doom, she could hardly restrain her tears. Night after night when she went to bed, she put her head under the clothes that Bernadine might not hear, and her chest was torn with sobs until she fell asleep.
At that time she devised no more tricks, she took no interest in games, and would not fight even. Bernadine did not know what to make of her. All day she was recovering from the lassitude caused by the mental anguish of the previous evening, but regularly at sunset it began again; and the more she suffered, the less able was she to speak on the subject. At first she had tried to discuss eternal punishment with Harriet, Bernadine, and Aunt Victoria, and each had responded characteristically. Harriet's imagination dwelt on the particular torments reserved for certain people she knew, which she described graphically. Bernadine listened to Beth's remarks with interest, then accused Beth of trying to frighten her, and said she would tell mamma. Aunt Victoria discoursed earnestly on the wages of sin, the sufferings of sinners, the glories of salvation, the peace on earth from knowing you are saved, and the pleasures of the world to come; but the more Beth heard of the joys of heaven, the more she dreaded the horrors of hell. Still, however, she was too shy to say anything about her own acute mental misery, and no one suspected that anything was wrong, until one day something dejected in the child's attitude happened to catch Aunt Victoria's attention.
Beth was sitting on an African stool, her elbow on her knee, her chin resting on her little hand, her grey eyes looking up through the window at the summer sky. What could the child be thinking of, Aunt Victoria wondered, and surely she was looking thin and pale – quite haggard.
"Why don't you get something to do, Beth?" the old lady asked. "It's bad for little girls to idle about all day."
"I wish I had something to do," Beth answered. "I'm so tired."
"Does your head ache, child?" Aunt Victoria asked, speaking sharply because her mind was disturbed.
"No."
"You should answer politely, and say 'No, thank you.'"
"No, thank you, Aunt Victoria," was the docile rejoinder.
Aunt Victoria resolved to speak to Mrs. Caldwell, and resumed her knitting. She was one of those people who can keep what they have to say till a suitable occasion offers. Her mind was never so full of any one subject as to overflow and make a mess of it. She would wait a week watching her opportunity if necessary; and she did not, therefore, although she saw Mrs. Caldwell frequently during the day, speak to her about Beth until the children had gone to bed in the evening, when she was sure of her effect.
Then she began abruptly.
"Caroline, that child Beth is ill."
Mrs. Caldwell was startled. It was very inconsiderate of Aunt Victoria. She knew she was nervous about her children; how could she be so unfeeling? What made her think Beth ill?
"Look at her!" said Aunt Victoria. "She eats nothing. She has wasted to a skeleton, she has no blood in her face at all, and her eyes look as if she never slept."
"I am sure she sleeps well enough," Mrs. Caldwell answered, inclined to bridle.
"I feel quite sure, Caroline," Aunt Victoria said solemnly, "that if you take a candle, and go upstairs this minute, you will find that child wide awake."
Mrs. Caldwell felt that she was being found fault with, and was indignant. She went upstairs at once, with her head held high, expecting to find Beth in a healthy sleep. The relief, however, of finding that the child was well, would not have been so great at the moment as the satisfaction of proving Aunt Victoria in the wrong.
But Beth was wide awake, petitioning God in an agony to spare her friends. When Mrs. Caldwell entered she started up.
"O mamma!" she exclaimed, "I'm so glad you've come; I've been so frightened about you."
"What is the matter with you, Beth?" Mrs. Caldwell asked, not over-gently. "What are you frightened about?"
"Nothing," Beth faltered, shrinking back into herself.
"Oh, that's nonsense," her mother answered. "It's silly to be frightened at nothing, and cowardly to be frightened at all. Lie down and go to sleep, like a good child. Come, turn your face to the wall, and I'll tuck you in."
Beth obeyed, and her mother left her to her fears, and returned to Aunt Victoria in the drawing-room.
"Well?" Aunt Victoria asked anxiously.
"She was awake," Mrs. Caldwell acknowledged. "She said she was frightened, but didn't know what of. I expect she'd been dreaming. And I'm sure there is nothing the matter with her. She's been subject to queer fits of alarm at night ever since she was a baby. It's the dark, I think. It makes her nervous. At one time the doctor made us have a night-light for her, which was great nonsense, I always said; but her father insisted. When it suits her to play in the dark, she's never afraid."
It was at this time that Rainharbour set up a band of its own. Beth was always peculiarly susceptible to music. Her ear was defective; she rarely knew if any one sang flat; but the poorest instrument would lay hold of her, and set high chords of emotion vibrating, beyond the reach of words. The first time she heard the band, she was completely carried away. It was on the pier, and she happened to be close beside it when it began to play, and stood still in astonishment at the crash of the opening bars. Her mother, after vainly calling to her to come on, snatched impatiently at her arm to drag her away; and Beth, in her excitement, set her teeth and slapped at her mother's hand – or rather at what seemed to her the importunate thing that was trying to end her ecstasy.
Of course Mrs. Caldwell would not stand that, so Beth, victim of brute force, was hustled off to the end of the pier, and then slapped, shaken, and reviled, for the enormity of her offence, until, in an acute nervous crisis, she wrenched herself out of her mother's clutches, and sprang over into the harbour. It was high-water happily, and Count Gustav Bartahlinsky, who was just going out in his yacht, saw her drop, and fished her out with a boat-hook.
"Look here, young woman," he said, "what do you mean by tumbling about like this? I shall have the trouble of turning back and putting you on shore."
"No, don't; no, don't," Beth pleaded. "Take me along with you."
He looked at her an instant, considering, then went to the side of the yacht, and called up to her frantic mother: "She's all right. I'll have her dried, and bring her back this afternoon," – with which assurance Mrs. Caldwell was obliged to content herself, for the yacht sailed on; not that she would have objected. Beth and Count Gustav were sworn allies by this time, and Mrs. Caldwell knew that Beth could not be in better hands. Beth had seen Count Gustav passing their window a few days after their first meeting, and had completed her conquest of him by tearing out, and running down Orchard Street after him with nothing on her head, to ask what copyright was; and since then they had often met, and sometimes spent delightful hours together, sitting on the cliffs or strolling along by the sea. He had discovered her talent for verse-making, and given her a book on the subject, full of examples, which was a great joy to her. When the yacht was clear of the harbour, he took her down to the saloon, and got out a silk shirt. "I'm going to leave you," he said, "and when I'm gone, you must take off all your things, and put this shirt on. Then tumble into that berth between the blankets, and I'll come back and talk to you." Beth promptly obeyed. She was an ill-used heroine now, in the hands of her knightly deliverer, and thoroughly happy.
When Count Gustav returned, he was followed by Gard, a tall, dark, handsome sailor, a descendant of black Dane settlers on the coast, and for that reason commonly called Black Gard. He brought sandwiches, cakes, and hot tea on a tray for Beth. She had propped herself up with pillows in the berth, and was looking out of an open port-hole opposite, listening enraptured to the strains of the band, which, mellowed by distance, floated out over the water.
"What a radiant little face!" the Count thought, as he handed her the tea and sandwiches.
Beth took them voraciously.
"Did you have any breakfast?" the Count asked, smiling.
"Yes," Beth answered.
"What did you have?"
"Milk and hot water and dry toast. I made the toast myself."
"No butter?"
"No. The butter's running short, so I wouldn't take any."
"When do you lunch?"
"Oh, we don't lunch. Can't afford it, you know. The boys have got to be educated, and Uncle James Patten won't help, though Jim's his heir."
Count Gustav looked at her little delicate hand lying on the coverlet, and then at the worn little face.
"You've been crying," he said.
"Ah, that was only last night after I went to bed," Beth answered. "It makes you cry when people aren't saved, doesn't it? Are you saved? If you're not it will be awful for me."
"Why?"
"'Cos it would hurt so here to think of you burning in hell" – Beth clasped her chest. "It always begins to ache here – in the evening – for the people who aren't saved, and when I go to bed it makes me cry."
"Who told you about being saved, and that?"
"Aunt Victoria. She lives with us, you know. She's going away now to pay a visit, because the boys are coming home, and Mildred, for the holidays, and there wouldn't be room for her. I'm dreadfully sorry; but I shall go to church, and read the Bible just the same when she's away."
Count Gustav sat down on the end of the saloon-table and reflected a little; then he said – "I wouldn't read anything, if I were you, while Aunt Victoria's away. Just play about with Mildred and the boys, and come out fishing with me sometimes. God doesn't want you to save people. He does that Himself. I expect He's very angry because you cry at night. He thinks you don't trust Him. All He wants you to do is to love Him, and trust Him, and be happy. That's the creed for a little girl."
"Do you think so?" Beth gasped. Then she began to reflect, and her big grey eyes slowly dilated, while at the same time a look of intense relief relaxed the muscles of her pinched little face. "Do you think so?" she repeated. Then suddenly she burst into tears.
Count Gustav, somewhat disconcerted, hurriedly handed her a handkerchief.
Another gentleman came into the saloon at the moment, and raised inquiring eyebrows.
"Only a little martyr, momentarily released from suffering, enjoying the reaction," Count Gustav observed. "Come on deck, and let her sleep. Do you hear, little lady, go to sleep."
Beth, docile to a fault when gently handled, nestled down among the blankets, shut her eyes, and prepared to obey. The sound of the water rippling off the sides of the yacht as it glided on smoothly over the summer-sea both soothed and cheered her. Heavenly thoughts came crowding into her mind; then sleep surprised her, with the tears she had been shedding for the sufferings of others still wet upon her cheek. When she awoke, her clothes were beside her, ready to put on. She jumped up instantly, dressed, and went on deck. The yacht was almost stationary, and the two gentlemen, attended by the black Dane, Gard, were fishing. Away to starboard, the land lay like a silver mist in the heat of the afternoon. Beth turned her sorrowful little face towards it.
"Are you homesick, Beth?" Count Gustav asked.
"No, sick of home," Beth answered; "but I suppose I shall have to go back."
"And what then?"
"Mamma will punish me for jumping into the harbour, I expect."
"Jumping in!" he ejaculated, and then a great gravity settled upon him, and he cogitated for some time. "Why did you jump in?" he said at last.
"Because mamma – because mamma – " her chest heaved. She was ashamed to say.
Count Gustav exchanged glances with the other gentleman, and said no more. But he took her home himself in the evening, and had a long talk with mamma and Aunt Victoria; and after he had gone they were both particularly nice to Beth, but very solemn. That night, too, Aunt Victoria did not mention death and the judgment, but talked of heaven and the mercy of God until Beth's brow cleared, and she was filled with hope.
It was the next day that Aunt Victoria left them to make room for Mildred and the boys. Beth went with her mother to see the old lady off at the station. On account of their connections the little party attracted attention, and Mrs. Caldwell, feeling her importance, expected the officials to be obsequious, which they were; and, in return, she also expected Aunt Victoria to make proper acknowledgment of their attentions. She considered that sixpence at least was necessary to uphold the dignity of the family on such occasions; but, to her horror, when the moment came, Aunt Victoria, after an exciting fumble, drew from her reticule a tract entitled "The Man on the Slant," and, in the face of everybody, handed it to the expectant porter.
Mrs. Caldwell assured Lady Benyon afterwards that she should never forget that moment. Beth used to wonder why.
CHAPTER XVIII
The end of the holidays found Beth in a very different mood. Jim had come with the ideas of his adolescence, and Mildred had brought new music, and these together had helped to take her completely out of herself. The rest from lessons, too – from her mother's method of making education a martyrdom, and many more hours of each day than usual spent in the open air, had also helped greatly to ease her mind and strengthen her body, so that, even in the time, which was only a few weeks, she had recovered her colour, shot up, and expanded.
Most of the time she had spent with Jim, whom she had studied with absorbing interest, his point of view was so wholly unexpected. And even in these early days she showed a trait of character for which she afterwards became remarkable; that is to say, she learned the whole of the facts of a case before she formed an opinion on its merits – listened and observed uncritically, without prejudice and without personal feeling, until she was fully informed. Life unfolded itself to her like the rules of arithmetic. She could not conjecture what the answer would be in any single example from a figure or two, but had to take them all down in order to work the sum. And her object was always, not to prove herself right in any guess she might have made, but to arrive at the truth. She was eleven years old at this time, but looked fourteen.
It was when she went out shooting with Jim that they used to have their most interesting discussions. Jim used to take her to carry things, but never offered her a shot, because she was a girl. She did not care about that, however, because she had made up her mind to take the gun when he was gone, and go out shooting on her own account; and she abstracted a certain amount of powder and shot from his flasks each day to pay herself for her present trouble, and also to be ready for the future. Uncle James had given Jim leave to shoot, provided he sent the game he killed to Fairholm; and sometimes they spent the day wandering through the woods after birds, and sometimes they sat on the cliffs, which skirted the property, potting rabbits. Jim expected Beth to act as a keeper for him, and also to retrieve like a well-trained dog; and when on one occasion she disappointed him, he had a good deal to say about the uselessness of sisters and the inferiority of the sex generally. Women, he always maintained, were only fit to sew on buttons and mend socks.
"But is it contemptible to sew on buttons and mend socks?" Beth asked, one day when they were sitting in a sandy hollow waiting for rabbits.
"It's not a man's work," said Jim, a trifle disconcerted.
Beth looked about her. The great sea, the vast tract of sand, and the blue sky so high above them, made her suffer for her own insignificance, and feel for the moment that nothing was worth while; but in the hollow where they sat it was cosy and the grass was green. Miniature cliffs overhung the rabbit-holes, and the dry soil was silvered by sun and wind and rain. There was a stiff breeze blowing, but it did not touch them in their sheltered nook. They could hear it making its moan, however, as if it were vainly trying to get at them; and there also ascended from below the ceaseless sound of the sea. Beth turned her back on the wild prospect, and watched the rabbit-holes.
"There's one on the right," she said at last, softly.
Jim raised his gun, aimed, and fired. The rabbit rolled over on its back, and Beth rose in a leisurely way, fetched it, carrying it by its legs, and threw it down on the bag.
"And when all the buttons are sewed on and all the socks mended, what is a girl to do with her time?" she asked dispassionately, when she had reseated herself. "The things only come home from the wash once a week, you see."
"Oh, there's lots to be done," Jim answered vaguely. "There's the cooking. A man's life isn't worth having if the cooking's bad."
"But a gentleman keeps a cook," Beth observed.
"Oh yes, of course," Jim answered irritably. "You would see what I mean if you weren't a girl. Girls have no brains. They scream at a mouse."
"We never scream at mice," Beth protested in surprise. "Bernadine catches them in her hands."
"Ah, but then you've had brothers, you see," said Jim. "It makes all the difference if you're taught not to be silly."
"Then why aren't all girls taught, and why aren't we taught more things?"
"Because you've got no brains, I tell you."
"But if we can be taught one thing, why can't we be taught another? How can you tell we've no brains if you never try to teach us?"
"Now look here, Miss Beth," said brother Jim in a tone of exasperation, "I know what you'll be when you grow up, if you don't mind. You'll be just the sort of long-tongued shrew, always arguing, that men hate."
"Do you say 'that men hate' or 'whom men hate'?" Beth interrupted.
"There you are!" said Jim; "devilish sharp at a nag. That's just what I'm telling you. Now, you take my advice, and hold your tongue. Then perhaps you'll get a husband; and if you do, make things comfortable for him. Men can't abide women who don't make things comfortable."
"Well," said Beth temperately, "I don't think I could 'abide' a man who didn't make things comfortable."
Jim grunted, as though that point of view were a different thing altogether.
By degrees Beth discovered that sisters did not hold at all the same sort of place in Jim's estimation as "the girls." The girls were other people's sisters, to whom Jim was polite, and whom he even fawned on and flattered while they were present, but made most disparaging remarks about and ridiculed behind their backs; to his own sisters, on the contrary, he was habitually rude, but he always spoke of them nicely in their absence, and even boasted about their accomplishments.
"Your brother Jim says you can act anything," Charlotte Hardy, the doctor's daughter, told Beth. "And you recite wonderfully, although you've never heard any one recite; and you talk like a grown-up person."
Beth flushed with surprise and pleasure at this; but her heart had hardly time to expand before she observed the puzzling discrepancy between what Jim said to her and what he had been saying to other people, and found it impossible to reconcile the two, so as to have any confidence in Jim's sincerity.
Before the end of the holidays she had learned to enjoy Jim's companionship, but she had no respect for his opinions at all. He had taught her a good deal, however. He had taught her, for one thing, the futility of discussion with people of his capacity. The small intellect should be treated like the small child – with tenderest consideration. It must not hear too much of anything at a time, and there are certain things that it must never be told at all. Simple familiar facts, with obvious little morals, are the right food for it, and constant repetition of what it knows is safe; but such heavy things as theories, opinions, and arguments must be kept carefully concealed from it, for fear of causing congestion or paralysis, or, worse still, that parlous condition which betrays itself in distressing symptoms such as one sees daily in society, or sits and shudders at in one's own friends, when the victim, swelling with importance, makes confident mis-statements, draws erroneous conclusions, sums up and gives advice so fatuous that you blush to be a biped of the same species.
There was an hotel in Rainharbour called the "United Kingdom," where Jim spent much of his time playing billiards, drinking beer, and smoking pipes. He had to coax money out of his mother continually for these pursuits.
"It's the kind of thing a fellow must do, you know, mamma," he said. "You can't expect him to stick at home like a girl. He must see life, or he'll be a muff instead of a man of the world. How shall I get on at Fairholm, when I come in for the property, if I'm not up to things?"
This was said at breakfast one morning, and Mrs. Caldwell, sitting opposite the window, raised her worn face and looked up at the sky, considering what else there was that she could do without.
"Do you learn how to manage estates at the 'United Kingdom'?" Beth put in innocently.
"Now, look here, Beth, just you shut up," said Jim. "You're always putting your oar in, and its deuced impertinent of a child like you, when I'm talking to my mother. She knows what I'm talking about, and you don't; but you'll be teaching her next, I expect. You're far too cheeky."
"I only wanted to know," Beth protested.
"That will do," said Mrs. Caldwell impatiently. She was put out by Jim's demand for money, which she had not got to spare, and found it a relief to expend some of her irritation on Beth. "Jim is quite right, and I won't have you hanging about always, listening to things you don't understand, and rudely interrupting."
"I thought we were at breakfast," Beth exclaimed, furious at being unjustly accused of hanging about.
"Be good enough to leave the table," said Mrs. Caldwell; "and you shall have nothing but bread and water for the rest of the day."
"It will be a dinner of herbs with contentment, then, if I have it alone," said Beth; for which impertinence she was condemned to be present at every meal.
Having extracted the money from his mother, Jim went off to the "United Kingdom," and came back in the afternoon, somewhat the worse for beer; but Mrs. Caldwell did not perceive it. He complained of the poor dinner, the cooking, and Beth's shabby appearance.
"How can you go out with me like that?" he said. "Why can't you dress properly? Look at my things! I'm decent."
"So should I be," said Beth, without malice, her eyes shining with mortification. "So should I be if anybody bought me decent clothes."
She did not think it unfair, however, that she should go shabby so that Jim might be well dressed. Nor did she feel it wrong, when the holidays were over, and the boys had gone, that she should be left idly drumming on the window-pane; that they should have every advantage while she had none, and no prospect but the uncertain chance of securing a husband if she held herself well and did as she was told – a husband whom she would be expected to obey whatever he might lack in the way of capacity to order. It is suffering which makes these things plain to a generous woman; but usually by the time she has suffered enough to be able to blame those whom it has been her habit to love and respect, and to judge of the wrong they have done her, it is too late to remedy it. Even if her faculties have not atrophied for want of use, all that should have been cultivated lies latent in her; she has nothing to fall back upon, and her life is spoilt.
Beth stood idly drumming on the window-pane for long hours after the boys had gone. Then she got her battered old hat, walked out to Fairholm, and wandered over the ground where she had been wont to retrieve for Jim. When she came to the warren, the rabbits were out feeding, and she amused herself by throwing stones at them with her left hand. She had the use of both hands, and would not have noticed if her knife had been put where her fork should have been at table; but she threw stones, bowled, batted, played croquet, and also tennis in after years, with her left hand by preference, and she always held out her left hand to be handed from a carriage.
She succeeded in killing a rabbit with a stone, to her own surprise and delight, and carried it off home, where it formed a welcome addition to the meagre fare. She skinned and cleaned it herself, boiled it, carved it carefully so that it might not look like a cat on the dish, covered it with good onion-sauce, and garnished it with little rolls of fried bacon, and sent it to table, where the only other dish was cold beef-bones with very little meat on them.
"Where did it come from?" Mrs. Caldwell asked, looking pleased.
"From Fairholm," Beth answered.
"I must thank your uncle," said Mrs. Caldwell.
"It was not my uncle," Beth answered, laughing; "and you're not to send any thanks."
"Oh, very well," said Mrs. Caldwell, still more pleased, for she supposed it was a surreptitious kindness of Aunt Grace Mary's. She ate the rabbit with appetite, and Beth, as she watched her, determined to go hunting again, and see what she could get for her. Beth would not have touched a penny of Uncle James's, but from that time forward she did not scruple to poach on his estate, and bring home anything she could catch. She had often prayed to the Lord to show her how to do something to help her mother in her dire poverty, and when this idea occurred to her, she accepted it as a direct answer to her prayer.
Mrs. Caldwell and the three girls slept in the largest bedroom in the house. It was at the back, looking into the little garden, and out to the east. The early morning sun, making black bars of the window-frame on the white blind, often awoke Beth, and she would lie and count the white spaces between the bars, where the window-panes were, – three, six, nine, twelve; or two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve. One morning after Jim left she was lying awake counting the window-panes when Harriet knocked at the door with the hot water. Mildred had not yet gone back to her aunt, and was sleeping with Beth, Bernadine being with her mother.
"Come, get up, children," said Mrs. Caldwell, as she got out of bed herself.
"Mamma, mayn't I have breakfast in bed?" said Bernadine in a wheedling tone.
"No, no, my little body," Mrs. Caldwell answered.
"But, mamma," whined the little body, "I've got such a headache!" She very often had when she ought to have been getting up.
"Cry, baby, cry," sang out Beth. "Mamma, give me my stockings."
Mrs. Caldwell picked them up off the floor, and gave them to her. Beth began to put them on in bed, and diverted herself as she did so by making diabolical grimaces at the malingering imp opposite.
"Mamma," Bernadine whined again, "Beth's teasing me."
"Beth, how often am I to tell you that I will not allow you to tease the child?" Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed.
Beth solemnly gartered her stockings. Then she gave Mildred a dig in the ribs with her heel, and growled, "Get up!"
"Mamma, Beth is teasing me, now," said Mildred promptly.
"Well, I don't see why I should be obliged to do all the getting up for the family," said Beth.
Her mother turned from the looking-glass with her hair-brush in her hand, and gazed at her sternly. Beth hummed a tune, but kept at a safe distance until she was dressed, then made her escape, going straight to the kitchen, where Harriet was cutting bread to toast. "That's all the bread there is," she said, "and it won't be enough for breakfast if you eat any."
"All right, then; I haven't any appetite," Beth answered casually. "What did you dream last night?"
"I dreamt about crocodiles," Harriet averred.
"A crocodile's a reptile," said Beth, "and a reptile is trouble and an enemy. You always dream nasty things; I expect it's your inside."
"What's that to do wi' it?" said Harriet.
"Everything," said Beth. "Don't you know the stuff that dreams are made of? Pickles, pork, and plum-cake."
"Dreams is sent for our guidance," Harriet answered portentously, shaking her head at Beth's flippancy.
"Well, I'm glad of it," said Beth, "for I dreamt I was catching Uncle James's trout in a most unsportsmanlike way, and I guess the dream was sent to show me how to do it. When I have that kind of dream, I notice it nearly always comes true. But where's the 'Dream Book'?"
"'Ook it," said Harriet. "'Ere's your ma."
As the other little bodies had their breakfasts in bed, Beth had to face her lessons alone that morning, and Mrs. Caldwell was not in an amiable mood; but she was absent as well as irritable, so Beth did some old work over again, and as she knew it thoroughly, she got on well until the music began.
Beth had a great talent as well as a great love for music. When they were at Fairholm, Aunt Grace Mary gave her Uncle James's "Instruction Book for Beginners" one wet day to keep her quiet, and she learnt her notes in the afternoon, and began at once to apply them practically on the piano. She soon knew all the early exercises and little tunes, and was only too eager to do more; but her mother hated the music-lesson more than any of the others, and was so harsh that Beth became nervous, and only ventured on the simplest things for fear of the consequences. When her mother went out, however, she tried what she liked, and, if she had heard the piece before, she could generally make something satisfactory to herself out of it. One day Aunt Victoria found her sitting on the music-stool, solemnly pulling at her fingers, one after the other, as though to stretch them.