Could auntie have discovered all this, Gretta wondered--she was lovely enough for anything! For, as she had offered the violin lessons, too, she surely must have guessed how her elder niece had longed and longed for proper ones! Gretta’s mother had played and had taught her, herself, but when mother died, a year ago, there had been no one to help the child with her music, and she had been forced to muddle along alone.
“How did Auntie Tib know about my violin?” she inquired of the doctor at dinnertime that day.
“I don’t know, my dear. Probably your mother wrote to her about your music,” said the doctor, who could not distinguish one note of music from another. “She seems to wish you to keep it up at school.”
“Where is it? The school, I mean?” ventured Gretta timidly.
“Oh, a most healthy, bracing spot; sea-air and fine views, I believe. The house is built on a sandy soil, and there is every modern convenience conducive to health; sanitary arrangements splendid; you’re a pair of lucky children!”
Gretta was used to streams of eloquence that she only half understood. She waited patiently until this one was over. Evidently none of the details dear to the hearts of children were to be elicited through conversation with the doctor; she was thrown back upon her own imaginings, and waited patiently for the advent of her aunt and Sybil on the following day.
It was with a face of unusual excitement that she rushed to open the front door to them when the time arrived, and the first glance at the child’s eager face reassured Mrs. Fleming, who had feared that Gretta might have demurred against the arrangement for her father’s sake.
“You’re looking forward to school, then, Gretta?” she inquired, when Sybil had flown to acquaint Ann with the details of her visit.
“Dad says we’re to go, and he seems to think he can manage without me, and thank you very much,” said Gretta, unwontedly demonstrative in the excitement that she was feeling. “Auntie, darling, do you really mean it?--about violin lessons, too?”
“Why, of course, my dear,” said Mrs. Fleming. “Your mother told me in her letters, as you know, that you had quite a special gift in that direction. She played so beautifully herself that I should like you to have the advantages she had. Perhaps, too, Gretta, you know, you might use it in years to come. It means hard work, but--the practising, I mean.”