ia. "Now
we're going to try this duet. I'll play the bass. Are you ready? I shall
count a whole bar first. One--two--three--four."

They began, Lesbia playing what was before her, but Terry improvising
out of his head. He did it so cleverly that his teacher, a little
nervous at reading her own part, did not notice for a bar or two that
the thumpings in the treble had nothing to do with the instruction book.
She stopped him reproachfully. His blue eyes looked as innocent as a
child-cherub's.

"I'm very fond of music," he bragged. "I like to play it my own way."

"I don't believe you've ever got as far as the middle of this book,"
declared Lesbia. "I shall begin at the beginning and see how much you
really know."

Master Terence Stockton either knew nothing of the elements of the piano
or he was not going to give away his information. He did not seem yet to
have grasped the value of the various notes. Lesbia set to work to try
and explain the functions of a minim, a crotchet, and a quaver. It was
so long since she had learnt such details in her own childhood that she
was a little at a loss how to express adequately in words what had
become a matter almost of instinct.

"This big note with a hole in it is a semibreve and it counts four of
these black notes, which are called crotchets. Now suppose we're
counting four crotchets to a bar, one--two--three--four; how long is
this semibreve?"

"How long? An inch! An inch and a half! Two inches!" exclaimed Terry
excitedly, as if he were playing a game at guessing. "There's a
foot-rule in my new joinering box if you'll let me go and fetch it!"

Lesbia nearly collapsed, for her own explanations were so clearly at
fault. She began again, and tried to make them a little more lucid. It
was uphill work, however; for though Terry would gaze at her, apparently
drinking in everything she said, he would suddenly come out with a
remark which showed that his mind was wandering elsewhere. Poor Lesbia
at the end of the half-hour felt they had made little progress. She
resolved privately to study the instruction book before to-morrow's
lesson, and to prepare some very plain and adequate plan of imprinting
musical notation on the grey pulp of Terry's unwilling brain.

Despite the fact that her pupil was decidedly a handful, the time at
Tunbury was nevertheless a holiday. They went beautiful walks in the
fields to pick primroses and dog violets, there was a wood where she
played robbers