e been thinking that I shall beg Mamma to let me have just a
small allowance, and go off by myself. I know people at Leipzig--the
Gassners, you remember. I could live there on little enough, and work,
and feel free. Of course, there's really no reason why I shouldn't. I
have been feeling so bound and helpless; and now that nobody has any
right to hinder me, you think it would be the wise thing?'

Alma had occasionally complained to her friend, as she did the other
evening to Harvey Rolfe, that easy circumstances were not favourable to
artistic ambition, but no very serious disquiet had ever declared
itself in her ordinary talk. The phrases she now used, and the look
that accompanied them, caused Sibyl some amusement. Only two years
older than Alma, Mrs. Carnaby enjoyed a more than proportionate
superiority in knowledge of the world; her education had been more
steadily directed to that end, and her natural aptitude for the study
was more pronounced. That she really liked Alma seemed as certain as
that she felt neither affection nor esteem for any other person of her
own sex. Herself not much inclined to feminine friendship, Alma had
from the first paid voluntary homage to Sibyl's intellectual claims,
and thought it a privilege to be admitted to her intimacy; being
persuaded, moreover, that in Sibyl, and in Sibyl alone, she found
genuine appreciation of her musical talent. Sibyl's choice of a husband
had secretly surprised and disappointed her, for Hugh Carnaby was not
the type of man in whom she felt an interest, and he seemed to her
totally unworthy of his good fortune; but this perplexity passed and
was forgotten. She saw that Sibyl underwent no subjugation; nay, that
the married woman did but perfect herself in those qualities of mind
and mood whereby she had shone as a maiden. It was a combination of
powers and virtues which appeared to Alma little short of the ideal in
womanhood. The example influenced her developing character in ways she
recognised, and in others of which she remained quite unconscious.

'I think you couldn't do better,' Mrs. Carnaby replied to the last
question; 'provided that----'

She paused intentionally, with an air of soft solicitude, of bland
wisdom.

'That's just what I wanted,' said Alma eagerly. 'Advise me--tell me
just what you think.'

'You want to live alone, and to have done with all the silly
conventionalities and proprieties--our old friend Mrs. Grundy, in fact.'

'That's it