CHAPTER XXII.
There was an interval of silence between the two ladies.
Mrs.Gallilee waited for Miss Minerva to speak next.

Miss Minerva waited to be taken into Mrs.Gallilee's confidence.

The sparrows twittered in the garden; and, far away in the schoolroom, the notes of the piano announced that the music lesson had begun.
"The birds are noisy," said Mrs.Gallilee.
"And the piano sounds out of tune," Miss Minerva remarked.
There was no help for it.

Either Mrs.Gallilee must return to the matter in hand---or the matter in hand must drop.
"I am afraid I have not made myself understood," she resumed.
"I am afraid I have been very stupid," Miss Minerva confessed.
Resigning herself to circumstances, Mrs.Gallilee put the adjourned question under a new form.

"We were speaking of Mr.Le Frank as a teacher, and of my niece as a pupil," she said.