"What is it, my boy? What is it, Ulric?" she exclaimed. "No bad news,
surely?"

"Bad news, mother dear? I scarcely see what more bad news _could_ come
to us. As long as we have each other, what is there for us to lose? But
I did not mean to speak gloomily this morning, for I have brought you
_good_ news. Fancy, mother, only fancy--I have got a pupil at last."

"My Ulric--that _is_ good news!" said poor Frau Wildermann.

"And who knows what it may lead to," said the young man. "I have always
heard that the _first_ pupil is the difficulty--once started, one gets
on rapidly. Especially if the pupil is one likely to do one credit, and
I fancy this will be the case with this boy. Mrs. Marchcote--it is
through her kindness I have been recommended--says he has unusual taste
for music. He has been longing to learn the violin."

"Who is he?" asked the mother.

"The son of Sir John Iltyd--one of the principal families here. I could
not have a better introduction. I am to go the day after
to-morrow--three lessons a week, and well paid."

He went on to explain all about the terms to his mother, who listened
with a thankful heart, as she saw Ulric's bright eyes and eager, hopeful
expression.

"He has not looked like that for many a long day," she thought to
herself, "and the help has not come too soon. Ulric would have been even
more unhappy had he known how very little we have left."

And she felt glad that she had struggled on without telling her son
quite the worst of things. What would she not have borne for him--how
had she not struggled for him all these years? He was the only one left
her, the youngest and last of her children, for the other three had died
while still almost infants, and Ulric had come to them when she and her
husband were no longer young, and had lost hopes of ever having a child
to cheer their old age. So never was a son more cherished. And he
deserved it. He had been the best of sons, and had tried in his boyish
way to replace his father, though he was only twelve years old when that
father died. Since then life had been hard on them both, doubly hard,
for each suffered for the other even more than personally, and yet in
another sense not so hard as if either had been alone. They had had
misfortune after misfortune--the little patrimony which had enabled Frau
Wildermann to yield to Ulric's darling wish of being a musician by
profession, had been lost by a bad investment just as his musical
educ