was
shaking her confidence. She sat down at the piano, however, and struck
a few notes; then her nerve forsook her.

"I can't play," she said. "I'm nervous."

"Humph!" snarled Old Tom. "I thought that 'ud be your Chopin! Go and
learn exercises with the children in Miss Tait's class-room."

Miss Tait, acting on Old Tom's report, put Beth into one of her lower
classes, and left her to practise with the beginners. When she had
gone, Beth glanced at the exercises, and then began to rattle them off
at such a rate that no one in the class could keep up with her. Miss
Tait came hurrying back.

"Who is that playing so fast?" she said. "Was it you, Miss Caldwell?"

"Yes," Beth answered.

"Then you must go into a higher class," said Miss Tait.

But the same thing happened in every class until at last Beth had run
up through them all, as up a flight of stairs, into Old Tom's first.
Her piano in the first, when the whole class was present and she had
no choice, was a hard old instrument, usually avoided because it was
the nearest to the table at which Old Tom sat (when she did not walk
about) during a lesson. The first time Beth took her place at it, the
other girls were only beginning to assemble, and Old Tom was not in
the room. A great teasing of instruments, as Old Tom called it, was
going on. A new piece was to be taken that morning, and each girl
began to try it as soon as she sat down, so that they were all at
different passages. They stopped, however, and looked up when Beth
appeared.

"That's your piano," the head girl said.

"I hope you'll like it!" one of the others added sarcastically.

"Oh, but I'm glad to be here!" said Beth, striking a few firm chords.
"Now I feel like Chopin," and she burst out into one of his most
brilliant waltzes triumphantly.

Old Tom had come in while she was speaking, but Beth did not see her.
Old Tom waited till she had done.

"Oh, so now ye feel like Chopin, Miss Caldwell," she jeered. "And it
appears ye are not above shamming nervous when it suits ye to mak'
yerself interesting. I shall remember that."

Old Tom taught by a series of jeers and insults. If a girl were poor,
she never failed to remind her of the fact. "But, indeed, ye're
beggars all," was her favourite summing up when they stumbled at
troublesome passages. Most of the girls cowered under her insults, but
Beth looked her straight in the face at this second encounter, and at
the third her spirit rose and she arg