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All the comfort all the meaning of it was gone. They were all kind to her; Miss Smalley sat with her evenings, till Bel wished she would have the wiser kindness to go away and let her be miserable, just a little while. Morris Hewland knocked at the door one afternoon when the music-mistress was out, giving her lessons.
Clement Austin, the cashier at Dunbar, Dunbar, and Balderby's Anglo-Indian banking-house, had fallen in love with the modest hazel-eyed music-mistress, and had set himself to work to watch her, and to find out all about her, long before he was conscious of the real nature of his feelings. He had begun by pitying her.
"Then I will promise that she shall be well rewarded for her exertions, if she will consent to sing in the chapel but do you consent?" "I have no objection, sir," replied I. "Allow me, then, to call the gentleman who presides over the choir," said the priest, going out. "Accept by all means, Mademoiselle Valerie. It will be an introduction for you as a music-mistress, and very advantageous."
It was clear, however, that she had found her sole hope of escape lay in gaining the friendship of one of the more favoured nuns. Her own position in the community was of the humblest, for she had neither rank nor wealth to commend her; but her skill on the harpsichord had attracted the notice of the music-mistress and she had been enrolled in the convent orchestra before her novitiate was over.
But don't let us waste our time talking about vocations. I hear enough of that here. I want you to tell me about the music-mistress; that's what interests me. And when Father Oliver had told her the whole story and showed her Father O'Grady's letter, she said: 'You know I always thought you were a little hard on Miss Glynn. Father O'Grady's letter convinces me that you were.
Upon the evening of the 27th August, Margaret gave her accustomed lesson, and lingered a little as usual after the lesson, talking to Mrs. Austin, who had taken a wonderful fancy to her granddaughter's music-mistress; and to Clement, who somehow or other had discontinued his summer evening walks of late, more especially on those occasions on which his niece took he music-lesson.
"Well, I will do your bidding, Mr Selwyn," replied I; "it is a very proper message for a music-mistress to take; and I will also bring back your sister's music, when Caroline gives it me, and you can call here for it. If I am out, you can ask Madame Gironac to give it to you." Upon which, with many thanks and much gratitude for my kindness, Mr Selwyn withdrew.
"Mademoiselle Auricule," said the princess, presenting to his majesty a fat, fair girl of two-and-twenty, who at a village fete might have been taken for a peasant in Sunday finery, "the daughter of my music-mistress." The king smiled. Madame had never been able to extract four correct notes from either viol or harpsichord.
They insisted on a graphic description of every female inmate of the boarding-house, and would scarcely believe that all except the little music-mistress were elderly and unattractive. Of the music-mistress herself they were inclined to be very suspicious, and were not altogether reassured by Gustave's assertion that she was neither pretty nor fascinating.
"You, you monster!" she replied, laughing gaily, "I never thought you one bit handsome, or witty, or dreamed that you had one good quality. I only married you, you know as well as I do, to get away from school, and from the atrocious tyranny of my music-mistress there. You need not look fie! at me, Valerie, for I'm too big to be put in the corner, now, and he won't let you whip me."
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