Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/186

172 XV

was Susan Ash who came to her with the news. "He 's downstairs, miss, and he do look beautiful."

In the schoolroom at her father's, which had pretty blue curtains, she had been making out at the piano a lovely little thing, as Mrs. Beale called it, a "Moonlight Berceuse" sent her through the post by Sir Claude, who considered that her musical education had been deplorably neglected and who, the last months at her mother's, had been on the point of making arrangements for regular lessons. She knew from him familiarly that the real thing, as he said, was shockingly dear and that anything else was a waste of money, and she therefore rejoiced the more at the sacrifice represented by this composition, of which the price, five shillings, was marked on the cover and which was evidently the real thing. She was now on her feet in an instant. "Mrs. Beale has sent up for me?"

"Oh, no—it 's not that," said Susan Ash. "Mrs. Beale has been out this hour."

"Then papa?"