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THE PIANIST.

Being the youngest in the school, at first I had no comrades. But one day I was told that a little girl of my own age had just arrived and that she was to be my fiend. Though not anxious for a friend, I was curious to see the new-comer.

An older girl led me into the concert-room where at the end of the year advanced pupils played the piano. To my surprise I saw, seated on top of a high stool, and actually playing to a large audience of girls, a very small, blonde creature. Her tiny plaits were standing out at right angles to her pink head and she was displaying all the antics of a concert pianist -- raising high her wee hands and letting them fall heavily on the key-board again. The piece was called "Haimweh" and towards the end, her little back arched and her plaits nodding to the movement, with exaggerated decision she fairly pounded out the last chords of despair. Though amazed I. was even more decided not to have a friend.

When the pianist was helped down from her stool and brought up to me, I turned round and fled. This ungracious retreat caused me to be scolded. Though still refusing to be friends I was quite willing to watch from afar the antics of the little prodigy. I discovered that she was German and that she chewed something the whole day long. It seemed to be chewing-gum, but I soon learned the awful truth which I never mentioned to a soul, so impossible it was to speak about. The little pianist, like a cow, chewed her cud! It would make me very ill indeed when, by the movement of her thin, little throat I saw the meal coming up and asking to be chewed over again.

In a school like St. Catherine's, this would have been a most unsuitable subject to discuss.