"What are you doing?" Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed.
"That's not right," her mother cried. "What does that sign mean? Now, what is it? Just think!"
Beth, with a flushed face, was thinking hard, but nothing came of it.
"Will you speak?" her mother said angrily. "You are the most obstinate child that ever lived. Now, say something."
"A shake!" her mother exclaimed, giving her a hard thump on the back with her clenched fist. "Now, no more obstinacy. Tell me what it is at once."
"I don't know that sign," Beth faltered in desperation.
"Oh, you don't know it!" her mother said, now fairly fuming, and accompanying every word by a hard thump of her clenched fist. "Then I'll teach you. I've a great mind to beat you as long as I can stand over you."
Beth was a piteous little figure, crouched on the piano-stool, her back bent beneath her mother's blows, and every fibre of her sensitive frame shrinking from her violence; but she made no resistance, and Mrs. Caldwell carried out her threat. When she could beat Beth no longer, she told her to sit there until she knew that sign, and then she left her. Beth clenched her teeth, and an ugly look came into her face. There had been dignity in her endurance--the dignity of self-control; for there was the force in her to resist, had she thought it right to resist. What she was thinking while her mother beat her was: "I hope I shall not strike you back."
Harriet had heard the scolding, and when Mrs. Caldwell had gone she came and peeped in at the door.
"She's bin' thumpin' you again, 'as she?" she said with a grin. "Wot 'a ye bin' doin' now?"
"What business is that of yours?" said Beth defiantly. It was bad enough to be beaten, but it was much worse to have Harriet peeping in to gloat over her humiliation. Harriet was not to be snubbed, however. She went up to the piano and looked at the music.
"It's precious hard, I should think," she remarked.
"It's _not_ hard," Beth answered positively, "if anybody tells you what you don't know and can't make out for yourself. I always remember when I'm told or shown how to do it; but what's the use of staring at a sign you've never seen before? Just you look at that! Can you make anything out of it?" Harriet approached, and, after staring at the sign curiously for some time, shook her head. "Of course not," said Beth, snatching up her music, and throwing it on the floor; "and neither can anybody else. It isn't fair."