I thought he did not mind it much, for he read it out to us quite quietly; and then he made me sit on his knee and read it out.  I cried with rage, and he called to me, ‘Sandra!  Peace!’ and began walking up and down the room, while my mother got the bread and cheese and spread it on the table, for we were beginning to be richer.  I saw my father take out his violin.  He put it on the cloth and looked at it.  Then he took it up, and laid his chin on it like a man full of love, and drew the bow across just once.  He whirled away the bow, and knocked down our candle, and in the darkness I heard something snap and break with a hollow sound.  When I could see, he had broken it, the neck from the body—­the dear old violin!  I could cry still.  I—­I was too late to save it.  I saw it broken, and the empty belly, and the loose strings!  It was murdering a spirit—­that was!  My father sat in a corner one whole week, moping like such an old man!  I was nearly dead with my mother’s voice.  By-and-by we were all silent, for there was nothing to eat.  So I said to my mother, “I will earn money.”  My mother cried.  I proposed to take a lodging for myself, all by myself; go there in the morning and return at night, and give lessons, and get money for them.  My landlady’s good son gave me the brass-plate again.  Emilia Alessandra Belloni!  I was glad to see my name.  I got two pupils very quickly one, an old lady, and one, a young one.  The old lady—­I mean, she was not grey—­wanted a gentleman to marry her, and the landlady told me—­I mean my pupil—­it makes me laugh—­asked him what he thought of her voice:  for I had been singing.  I earned a great deal of money:  two pounds ten shillings a week.  I could afford to pay for lessons myself, I thought.  What an expense!  I had to pay ten shillings for one lesson!  Some have to pay twenty; but I would pay it to learn from the best masters;—­and I had to make my father and mother live on potatoes, and myself too, of course.  If you buy potatoes carefully, they are extremely cheap things to live upon, and make you forget your hunger more than anything else.

“I suppose,” added Emilia, “you have never lived upon potatoes entirely?  Oh, no!”

Wilfrid gave a quiet negative.

“But I was pining to learn, and was obliged to keep them low.  I could pitch any notes, and I was clear but I was always ornamenting, and what I want is to be an accurate singer.  My music-master was a German—­not an Austrian—­oh, no!—­I’m sure he was not.  At least, I don’t think so, for I liked him.  He was harsh with me, but sometimes he did stretch his fingers on my head, and turn it round, and say words that I pretended not to think of, though they sent me home burning.  I began to compose, and this gentleman tore up the whole sheet in a rage, when I showed it him; but he gave me a dinner, and left off charging me ten shillings—­only seven, and then five—­and he gave me more time than he gave others.  He also did something which I don’t know yet whether