"It isn't wasted; it comes in handy to croon the babies to sleep," she answered humorously. "And as I'm going to stay at home for the present it will most probably be wanted."

Rosemary went home with her head in a whirl. A voice like that to be devoted to crooning children to sleep! It seemed wicked. Her experience at the college had taught her enough to make her realize how much might be made of Claudia's voice with proper training. Oh! if she could only have exchanged places with Claudia! For a moment a flood of wild, bitter jealousy swept over her. This girl had all the qualifications for the want of which she herself had failed. Why had not Providence, who gave her the keen enthusiasm for music, also gifted her with that throat and voice?

"It's not fair!" raged Rosemary, wiping away very salt tears. "Some people have all the luck in life. I'd give worlds for a strong voice, instead of my wretched little drawing-room twitter."

From her sister she enquired whether Claudia could dance.

"Dance!" echoed Lorraine eloquently. "You should just see her! I wish you'd been at the rhythmic dancing display last Christmas. Her forget-me-not dance was simply a dream. Everybody said they never saw anything quite so beautiful. Miss Leighton was tremendously proud of her. She said that Claudia was the only girl in the whole school who took to the poses absolutely naturally. She fell into them as easily as easily, while all the rest of us had to practise no end."

"She's a very graceful girl, as well as immensely pretty."

There was a terrific struggle raging in Rosemary's heart. She knew that Signor Arezzo was always on the look-out for really suitable sopranos to train for opera. A girl who fulfilled his critical conditions would be awarded entirely free tuition, with a maintenance-scholarship in addition at the College of Music. If Claudia could be coached a little in Signor Arezzo's particular method of voice production, so that no glaring faults should offend him, it was highly probable that, if she were to sing before him, he would decide to give her a training.

"After two terms with him, I know _exactly_ what he wants," reflected Rosemary. "I could teach someone else, though I could not do it myself.

There are all my books of exercises and studies packed away at home; I'd made up my mind never to look at them again. Oh, dear! It will be like opening a wound to get them out. Shall I, or shall I not? The girl seems contented enough as she is."

It takes some qualifications for sainthood to hold open for another the door of a paradise you may not enter yourself. As Rosemary's mind see-sawed up and down, her eyes fell on a quotation printed on a calendar which hung in her room.

"Four things come not back to man or woman--the sped arrow, the spoken word, the past life, and the neglected opportunity."

"It _is_ an opportunity," she mused; "an opportunity of helping such as probably I shall never find again in the whole of my life. Rosemary Doris Forrester, you've got to buck up and not be an envious beast.

You're going to unpack that music, and teach that girl all you know. _I_ say so, the real _I_--not the horrid, mean, jealous, selfish, contemptible part of me. Here goes! I'll write and propose it, and send the letter up at once by Lorraine, so as to burn my boats. I hope to goodness Claudia will have the sense to s.n.a.t.c.h at such a good offer. I shan't tell anybody a word about it beforehand."

Lorraine, who always went willingly on any errand to Windy Howe, handed over her sister's impulsive letter, quite unwitting of its contents.

Claudia read it, flushed, and caught her breath with a sharp little cry.

She turned to her friend with eyes like two stars.

"Do you know what Rosemary proposes?" she asked.

"No."

"Why, she actually offers to teach me to sing! And oh, Lorraine! She hints that, if I try hard, she would write to Signor Arezzo and ask him to hear me, and perhaps he would be able to give me a scholarship for the college, and I could go and study."

It was Lorraine's turn to a.s.similate the surprise.

"Good old Rosemary! She's a trump card! But I thought you didn't care about winning scholarships, Claudia. I believe you missed sending in that application on purpose."

Claudia blushed consciously.

"That was altogether different. I hated the idea of teaching kindergarten. But to study singing! I'd _love_ it! You know how fond I am of music--as fond as Morland is, really, only I never had his fingers for the piano. I shouldn't be much of a player, I know; but to sing!

It's my ideal! I'll go and write to Rosemary now, and say I'm ready to be her pupil to-morrow. Oh, it _is_ good of her!"

So the exercises and studies came out of their retirement in the dark cupboard after all, and Rosemary grew so interested in "putting Claudia through her paces", as she described it, that her own bitter disappointment began somehow to soften and tone down. Claudia was a pattern pupil. To begin with, her voice was such excellent material to work upon; then she had a very world of young enthusiasm, and was sufficiently modest to accept her teacher's dicta without argument. She practised diligently, and the training soon began to tell. In quite a short time there was marked improvement. Rosemary, listening to her deliciously pure high notes, felt a vicarious satisfaction. They were so exactly what she had always longed to produce herself.

"I shan't write to Signor Arezzo till we're through Book II," she decreed. "If you go on at this rate, I think he'll be satisfied when he hears you. If he accepts you, I _shall_ be proud!"

For answer, Claudia flung her arms round Rosemary's neck and hugged her.

"You're the sweetest, kindest, most unselfish darling in the whole of the wide world!" she blurted out.

CHAPTER XVII

A Mid-term Beano

Though Lorraine and Claudia might regard Madame Bertier with more or less suspicion, she was an immense favourite with the rest of the school. The Misses Kingsley found the vivacious little Russian lady one of the best teachers they had ever had, and treasured her accordingly, while most of the girls still revolved round her orbit. She was undoubtedly very clever and fascinating. There is a certain type of pretty woman who can be adorable to her own s.e.x. Madame liked admiration, if it were only that of a schoolgirl, and she thought the flowers and little notes that were showered upon her charming tokens of her popularity.

"They practise their hearts upon me, these poor children!" she would observe sentimentally. "The little love letters! Ah, they are _tout a fait gentilles_! Wait a few years! They will be writing them to somebody more interesting than their teacher! Oh, yes! I know well!"

"For goodness' sake don't put such ideas into their heads!" said Miss Janet, who admired the open-air type of girl, and had no weakness for romance. "I wish you wouldn't encourage them to write you those silly notes. It's a form of sentiment I've no patience with at all--a mere waste of time and paper!"

Madame shrugged her shoulders eloquently.

"What will you? We all have our own methods! As for me, I win their funny little hearts, then they will work at their lessons for love--yes, for sheer love. In but a few months they have made _beaucoup de progres!

N'est-ce pas?_ Ah, it is my theory that we must love first, if we will learn."

Though Miss Janet might sniff at Madame's sentimental method of education, she nevertheless could not deny its admirable results. In French and music the school had lately made enormous strides. The elder girls had begun to read French story-books for amus.e.m.e.nt, and the juniors had learnt to play some French games, which they repeated with a pretty accent. Both violin and piano students played with a fire and spirit that had been conspicuous by their absence a year ago, under the tame instruction of Miss Parlane.

Madame did not confine herself entirely to her own subjects. She took an interest in all the activities of the school. It was she who arranged a ramble on the cliffs.

"They get so hot, playing _toujours_ at the cricket," she said to Miss Kingsley. "Of what use is it to hit about a ball? Let them come with me for a promenade upon the hills and we shall get flowers to press for the _musee_. It is not well to do always the same thing."

A ramble for the purpose of gathering wild-flowers was a suggestion that appealed to the Sixth. The museum was not too well furnished with specimens. There was scope for any amount of further collecting.

Since the curious episode of the cut telephone wires during the Easter holidays, there had been no further happenings at the museum. Miss Kingsley inclined to Madame Bertier's view, that some spy, finding the window had been left open, had taken a ladder and forced an entrance that way. She had caused a screw to be placed in the window, and the door was kept carefully locked except when the room was in use.

To Lorraine the place felt haunted. She had a horror of being there alone, and never ventured to go there unless accompanied by two or three of her schoolfellows. She had an unreasonable idea that the little trap-door in the corner might suddenly open, and a sinister face peer down out of the darkness. The nervous impression was so strong that she held the monitresses' meetings in the cla.s.s-room instead of in the museum. When the mid-term beano came round, she suggested that they should a.s.semble in the summer-house.

It had been an old-established custom at the school that once in each term the seniors should hold a kind of bean-feast. They met to read aloud papers, and suck sweets. Their doings were kept a dead secret from the juniors, who naturally were exceedingly curious, and made every effort to overhear the proceedings. On this occasion the seniors took elaborate precautions against intrusion from the lower school. Two monitresses stood in the cloak-room and sternly chivvied the younger girls to hasten their steps homewards. They went unwillingly and suspiciously.

"Why are you in such a precious hurry to get rid of us to-day?" asked Mona Parker, pertly. "You're not generally so keen on us going off early."

"There's been too much loitering about the cloak-room lately,"

vouchsafed Dorothy.

"Bow-wow! How conscientious we are, all of a sudden! You've something up your sleeve, I think, Madam Dorothy!"

"Mona Parker, put on your boots at once, and don't cheek your betters!"

"But there _is_ something going on, I'm sure!" piped up Josie Payne.

"Nellie, be a sport and tell us!"

"Mind your own business, and don't b.u.t.t in where you're not wanted! How long _are_ you going to be in lacing those shoes?"

"There, there! Don't get ratty! I'm ready now!"