married, and interest in the concerts declined. For a little while the
old music had seemed as if it were going to attract sufficient
attention, but already their friends had heard enough, and Mr. Innes had
been compelled to postpone the next, which had been announced for the
beginning of February. There would be no concert now till March, perhaps
not even then; so there was nothing for her to look forward to, and the
wet windy weather which swept the suburb contributed to her
disheartenment. The only event of the day seemed to be her father's
departure in the morning. Immediately after breakfast he tied up his
music in a brown paper parcel and put his violin into its case; he spoke
of missing his train, and, from the windows of the music-room, she saw
him hastening down the road. She had asked him if there were any MSS. he
wished copied in the British Museum; absent-mindedly he had answered
"No;" and, drumming on the glass with her fingers, she wondered how the
day would pass. There was nothing to do; there was nothing even to think
about. She was tired of thinking that a pupil might come back--that a
new pupil might at any moment knock at the door. She was tired of
wondering if her father's concerts would ever pay--if the firm of music
publishers with whom he was now in treaty would come to terms and enable
him to give a concert in their hall, or if they would break off
negotiations, as many had done before. And, more than of everything
else, she was tired of thinking if her father would ever have money to
send her abroad, or if she would remain in Dulwich always.

One morning, as she was returning from Dulwich, where she had gone to
pay the weekly bills, she discovered that she was no longer happy. She
stopped, and, with an empty heart, saw the low-lying fields with poultry
pens, and the hobbled horse grazing by the broken hedge. The old
village was her prison, and she longed as a bird longs. She had trundled
her hoop there; she ought to love it, but she didn't, and, looking on
its too familiar aspect, her aching heart asked if it would never pass
from her. It seemed to her that she had not strength nor will to return
home. A little further on she met the vicar. He bowed, and she wondered
how he could have thought that she could care for him. Oh, to live in
that Rectory with him! She pitied the young man who wore brown clothes,
and whose employment in a bank prevented him from going abroad for his
health. These peopl