"That was good work, Louise. Now, the others."

But Louise, shy and glowing, broke in—

"But it wasn't all mine, Miss Hartill, not a bit."

Clare looked at her, half frowning.[46]

[46]

"Not yours? Your handwriting——?"

"Oh, I wrote it. But you've made it different. I hadn't meant it like that."

Clare raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"I have misinterpreted——?"

Louise was too much in earnest to be fluttered.

"I only mean—you made it sound so beautiful that it was like listening to—to an organ. I didn't bother about the words while you read. It was all colours and gold—like the things in the Venetian room. You know. The meaning didn't matter. But I did mean something, not half so good, of course, only quite different. Horrid and grizzly like the plain he travelled through, Childe Roland. It ought to have sounded harsh and starved, like rats pattering—what I meant—not beautiful."

"I see." Clare was interested. She was quite aware that she had used her magnificent voice to impress arbitrarily her opinion of Louise's work upon the class. That Louise, impressionable as she knew her to be, should have yet detected the trick, amused her greatly.

"So you think I didn't understand your essay?"

Louise's shy laugh was very pleasant.

"Oh, Miss Hartill. I'm not so stupid. It's only that I can't have got the—the——"

"Atmosphere!" The girl in spectacles helped her.

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