Ad fairy inside it," he said, half in fun, half in petulance. "Why, Basil----" began his mother, but her glance happening at the moment to fall on the young German, she stopped short, startled at the look of intense distress that overspread his features. "He thinks I shall blame _him_, poor fellow," she thought, and, with her quick kindliness, she tried, indirectly, to reassure him. "Don't look so grave about this silly little boy, Herr Wildermann," she said brightly. "Suppose you drive away the bad fairy by playing to us, and let lazy Basil rest a little." Basil's face, which had clouded over at the beginning of this speech, brightened up again. He flung himself down on the rug with the air of one intending to enjoy himself. And for the next ten minutes or so not a sound was heard but the exquisite tones of the master's violin, thrilling with intensity, then warbling like a bird in the joyous spring-time, bringing the tears to the boy's eyes with its tender pathos, and then flushing his cheeks with excitement, till at last they died away in the distance as it were, as if returning to the enchanted land from whence they came. Basil gave a deep sigh. "Ah," he said, in a low voice, "to play like _that_----" Herr Wildermann's face lighted up. "He _has_ it--he loves it so much, madame," he said half apologetically to Lady Iltyd. "Yes," she said, but her tone was rather grave. "But it is not enough to love it. He must learn not to be so easily discouraged. You know, my boy, what I said to you at the beginning," she went on, turning to Basil, "it is not a _necessity_ to learn the violin. I