Page:Robins - My Little Sister.djvu/19

Rh No; there was an exception to this.

Not even my mother could make me good at music. She was infinitely patient. She made allowances for me that she never made for my sister.

Once, when I was dreadfully discouraged, I was allowed to leave my "Etude" and learn something that might be supposed to catch my fancy - a gay and foolish little waltz-tune called "The Emerald Isle." "Oh, but quicker, child!" I hear her now. "It is not a dirge."

I began again - allegro, as I thought.

But "Faster, faster!" my mother kept saying, till I dropped my hands.

"How can I? You expect me to be as quick as God!"

I think this must have been after that act of His which gave us a sense of surpassing swiftness. For long I blamed my lack of skill upon my fingers; they were as stiff as Bettina's were elastic. She kept always the hand of a very young child - so soft and pliant that you wondered if there were any bones in it at all until you heard the firm tone in her playing, and saw the way in