Basil's Violin by Mary Louisa Molesworth — Read

THAT same afternoon an elderly woman was sitting alone by the window of a shabby little parlour over a grocer's shop in the High Street of Tarnworth. She had a gentle, careworn face -- a face that looked as if its owner had known much sorrow, but had not lost heart and patience. She was knitting -- knitting a stocking, but so deftly and swiftly that it was evident she did not need to pay any attention to what her fingers were doing. Her eyes, -- soft, old, blue eyes, with the rather sad look those clear blue eyes often get in old age, -- gazed now and then out of the window -- for from where she sat a corner of the ivy-covered church tower was to be seen making a pleasant object against the sky -- and now and then turned anxiously towards the door.

"He is late, my poor Ulric," she said to herself. "And yet I almost dread to see him come in, with the same look on his face -- always the same sad disappointment! Ah, what a mistake it has been, I fear, this coming to England -- but yet we did it for the best, and it seemed so likely to succeed here where there are two or three such good schools and no music teacher. We did it for the best, however, and there is no use regretting it. The good God sees fit to try us -- but still we must trust Him. Ah, if it were only I, but my poor boy!"