or he was, as she had hoped he would be, struck
by what she had said, and was thinking over it. Then he jumped up, and
throwing his arms round his mother's neck, kissed her very lovingly.

"Mother dear," he said, "I do want to learn it, and I will try. Even if
it is very difficult, I'll try. You'll see if I won't, for I do love
music, and I love _you_, mother. And I would like to please you."

Lady Iltyd kissed him in return.

"My own dear boy," she said, "you will please me very much if you
overcome that bad habit of losing heart over difficulties."

"He may learn more things than music in learning the violin," she
thought to herself.

But as Basil went upstairs to bed, fiddling at his invisible violin all
the way, and whistling the tune he liked to fancy he was playing, _he_
said to himself: "I do mean to try, but I _can't_ believe it is so
difficult as mother says."

PART II

THAT same afternoon an elderly woman was sitting alone by the window of
a shabby little parlour over a grocer's shop in the High Street of
Tarnworth. She had a gentle, careworn face--a face that looked as if its
owner had known much sorrow, but had not lost heart and patience. She
was knitting--knitting a stocking, but so deftly and swiftly that it was
evident she did not need to pay any attention to what her fingers were
doing. Her eyes,--soft, old, blue eyes, with the rather sad look those
clear blue eyes often get in old age,--gazed now and then out of the
window--for from where she sat a corner of the ivy-covered church tower
was to be seen making a pleasant object against the sky--and now and
then turned anxiously towards the door.

"He is late, my poor Ulric," she said to herself. "And yet I almost
dread to see him come in, with the same look on his face--always the
same sad disappointment! Ah, what a mistake it has been, I fear, this
coming to England--but yet we did it for the best, and it seemed so
likely to succeed here where there are two or three such good schools
and no music teacher. We did it for the best, however, and there is no
use regretting it. The good God sees fit to try us--but still we must
trust Him. Ah, if it were only I, but my poor boy!"

And the old eyes filled with slow-coming tears.

They were hastily brushed away, however, for at that moment the door
opened and a young man, breathless with excitement, hurried into the
room.

"Mother!" he exclaimed, but before he could say more she interrupted
him.