How everything in this world tends to good! At her father's death she had mourned bitterly; it had struck her to the heart; his imprudence (she could never use, even in thought, a harsher word) pained more than it shamed her, and not a day passed but she sorrowed over the dishonour that darkened his memory.

Yet were not these woes and disasters the beginning of a new life for _her_! In prosperity, what would she ever have become?
Nothing less than being thrown out into the world could have given her the impulse needed to realise a high ambition.

'_Tant mieux_, another great violinist!' How sincerely, how inspiringly, it was said! And Alma's feet had brought her home again before she paused to reflect that, for all purposes of ambition, the past half-year had been utterly wasted.

Never mind; after her return from Bregenz! On her table lay Redgrave's note; a very civil line or two, requesting permission to call.

There was another letter, black-bordered, which came from her step-mother.