Page:Our Little Girl (1923).pdf/90

 Rose mimicked Mme. Graaberg with irreverent accuracy.

"You've got a wicked diction," she added suddenly. “Each word a pearl, each pearl a prayer. You'll be in recital quick after they let you out.”

Rose swung up on the table, and perched there, swinging her attractive legs.

Dorothy shook her head. She couldn’t talk to Rose.

“You'll be down at Aeolian—see if you aren’t! Miss Dorothy Reitz Loamford—soprano—tickets fifty cents to two dollars, tax ten per cent extra. Free list positively suspended. I know!”

“And you'll be—singing ‘Lucia.’”

Dorothy hoped that there was no sarcasm in her voice, but if there was Rose overlooked it. She laughed.

“That’s quaint, old dear. More likely Reisenweber’s or such. They'll call me Rosemanara, the Hawaiian Hot Water Bottle.”

She performed a restrained but proficient shoulder movement, singing softly:

"All the boys along Broadway are strong for chicken raw,

But down in Honolulu they like turkey in the straw-"

“That’s not a nice song to sing here, is it?” she concluded. “Wonder how poor Paul would have sung it. With soul, I suppose.”

The library clock buzzed and clicked on the hour. Rose skipped to the door.

“You ought to go tea-dancing—I know of two bright eyes, waiting for me’-—wonderful for diction—‘Old Jim Ryan had a small Hawaiian way down, Way down on Honolulu bay-ay.’”

A serious student, Rose. Tea dancing when she was supposed to be studying the history of church music!