f-holiday. Basil came home at mid-day, and the
violin lesson was in the afternoon.

"Am I to have a lesson to-day, mother?" said the boy at luncheon.

"Herr Wildermann is coming," replied his mother, "it would be very rude
to let him come for nothing. I will see him first, and then you can go
to him for the hour. If he likes to play to you instead of your having a
lesson, I do not care. It does not signify _now_."

The idea would have been very much to Basil's taste, but the tone in
which his mother said that "now," made him again feel vexed. He tried to
fancy he had cause for being so, for he would not own to the real
truth--that he was vexed with himself, and that "himself" deserved it.

"It isn't fair," he repeated half sullenly.

Two hours later he was summoned to the library. Herr Wildermann had come
fully a quarter of an hour before--he had heard his ring, and he knew
his mother was in the drawing-room waiting for him. When he entered the
library he thought at first there was no one there--the violin cases lay
open on the table, the music-stand was placed ready as usual; but that
was all. No pleasant voice met him with a friendly greeting in broken
English and words of kindly encouragement.

"Can Herr Wildermann have gone already?" thought the boy. "He might have
waited to say good-bye. What did Sims call me for if he had gone?"

And he was turning to leave the room with a mixture of
feelings--irritation and some disappointment, mingled nevertheless with
a certain sense of relief, for he had dreaded this last lesson--when a
slight, a very slight sound seeming to come from somewhere near the
windows, caught his ear. He had come into the room more softly than his
wont, and his footfall had made no sound on the thick carpet. The person
who was hidden by the curtains had not heard him, had no idea any one
was in the room, for through a sort of half-choked sob the child heard
two or three confused words which, though uttered in German, were easy
enough to understand--

"My mother, ah, my poor mother! How can I tell her? Oh, my mother!"

And startled and shocked, Basil stopped short in the question that was
on his lips. "Who's there? Is it you, Blanche?" he had been on the
point of saying, when the words caught his ears.

"It must be Herr Wildermann--can he be _crying_?" said Basil to himself,
his cheeks growing red as the idea struck him. "What should I do?"

He had no time to consider the question, for as h