"What have you there, Puck?" said Lady Benyon, catching sight of some hieroglyph drawn on the paper. Beth gave it to her, and she turned it this way and that, but could make nothing of it.
"Mamma will tell us what it is," said Beth, taking it to her mother.
Mrs. Caldwell, still smiling, looked at the drawing. "It's an astronomical sign, surely," she ventured.
"Then I don't know what it is," her mother rejoined.
"Oh, but you must know, mamma," said Beth. "Look again."
"But I don't know, Beth," Mrs. Caldwell insisted.
"Couldn't you make it out if Aunt Victoria beat you?" Beth suggested.
"That is what you expect me to do, at all events," Beth pursued. "Now, you see, you can't do it yourself; and I ask you, was it fair to expect me to make out a strange sign by staring at it?" She set her mouth hard when she had spoken, and looked her mother straight in the face. Mrs. Caldwell winced.
"What's the difficulty, Puck?" Lady Benyon asked.
"The difficulty is between me and mamma," Beth answered with dignity, and then she left the room, sauntering out as she had come in, with an utterly dispirited air.
The next morning she went to practice as usual, but Mrs. Caldwell did not come to give her her music-lesson. Beth thought she had forgotten it, and went to remind her.
"No, Beth, I have not forgotten," said Mrs. Caldwell; "but after your conduct yesterday, I do not know how you can expect me to give you another music-lesson."
"Are you not going to give me any more?" Beth exclaimed.
"No, certainly not," her mother answered.
Beth's heart sank. She stood for some little time in the doorway looking at her mother, who sat beside the table sewing, and pointedly ignored her; then Beth turned, and went back to the drawing-room slowly, and carefully practised the usual time, with great tears trickling down her cheeks. It did not seem to make much difference what happened, whether she was on her best behaviour or her worst, the tears were bound to come. But Beth had a will of her own, and she determined to learn music. She said no more on the subject to her mother, however, but from that day forward she practised regularly and hard, and studied her instruction books, and listened to other people playing when she had a chance, and asked to have passages explained to her, until at last she knew more than her mother could have taught her.