cious little
instrument, whose "contrariness," as he called it, really made Basil
sometimes fancy it was bewitched.

"You've got it inside you; why won't you let it come out for me as well
as for him?" he would say, addressing his violin, half in fun, half in
petulance, after some vain but not very sustained effort to draw out of
it tones in any way approaching those which in Herr Wildermann's hands
seemed to come of themselves. "No, I've no patience with you. It's too
bad," and down he would fling violin and bow, declaring to himself he
would never touch them again. But when the day for the music lesson
came round, and Herr Wildermann drew out some few lovely notes before
Basil was ready to begin, all the boy's impatience disappeared, and he
listened as if entranced till his master recalled his attention. And
thus, seeing the child's undoubted love for music, Ulric could not yet
feel altogether discouraged, though again there were times when he
doubted if his efforts would ever succeed in making a musician of the
boy.

"But as long as he likes it so much," he would say to himself, "and
provided he does not _wish_ to give it up, it would be wrong of me to
suggest it. In any case it is for his mother to judge."

Before the fortnight was over, however, Herr Wildermann's patience was
sorely tried. There came a day on which, with a sudden outburst of
temper, Basil refused to try any more, and only by dint of promising to
play to him for a quarter of an hour after the lesson was over, could
his master get him to make any effort. Nor was it worth much when made.

And poor Ulric walked home that day to the little lodging over the
grocer's shop with a heavy heart.

PART III

IN the first pleasant excitement of her return home and finding the
children well, and to all appearance happy, Lady Iltyd did not think of
what had, nevertheless, been often in her mind during her
absence--namely, Basil's violin!

But the day after, when he came back from school and was beginning to
tell her all he had been busied about while she was away, the question
soon came to her lips, "And what about your violin, my boy?"

Basil hesitated--then his rosy face grew rosier than before, and he
stood first upon one leg and then upon the other, a habit of his when
not quite easy in his mind.

"Well?" said Lady Iltyd.

Then out it came.

"Mother," he began, "I didn't like to tell you yesterday just when you
first came back, but I was going