ape painting'.

'Who told you that?' asked Alma, with surprise.

'I hope it wasn't a secret. Mrs. Abbott spoke of your water-colours
once. She was delighted with them.'

Praise even from Mary Abbott gratified Alma; it surprised her, and she
doubted its sincerity, but there was satisfaction in knowing that her
fame went abroad among the people at Gunnersbury. Without admiration
she could not live, and nothing so severely tested her resolution to be
content with the duties of home as Harvey's habit of taking all for
granted, never remarking upon her life of self-conquest, never soothing
her with the flatteries for which she hungered.

She hailed with delight the first visit after several months from her
friends Dora and Gerda Leach. During the summer their father's health
had suffered so severely that the overwrought man found himself
compelled to choose between a long holiday abroad and the certainty of
complete collapse if he tried to pursue his ordinary life. The family
went away, and returned in November, when it seemed probable that the
money-making machine known as Mr. Leach had been put into tolerable
working order for another year or so. Not having seen Alma since her
recital, the girls overflowed with talk about it, repeating all the
eulogies they had heard, and adding such rapturous laudation of their
own that Alma could have hung upon their necks in gratitude. They found
it impossible to believe that she would no more play in public.

'Oh, but when you are _quite_ well!' they exclaimed. 'It would be a
shame--a sin!'

In writing to them, Alma had put her decision solely on the ground of
health. Now, assuming a countenance of gentle gravity, she made known
her higher reasons.

'I have felt it to be my duty. Remember that I can't consider myself
alone. I found that I must either devote myself wholly to music or give
it up altogether. You girls can't very well understand. When one is a
wife and a mother--I thought it all over during my illness. I had been
neglecting my husband and Hughie, and it was too bad--downright
selfishness. Art and housekeeping won't go together; I thought they
might, butt found my mistake. Of course, it cost me a struggle, but
that's over. I have learnt to _renounce_.'

'It's very noble of you!' murmured Dora Leach.

'I never heard anything so noble!' said her sister.

Alma flushed with pleasure.

'And yet you know,' Dora pursued, 'artists have a duty to the world.'

'I can't