"Well, really, I can't see why you need be so close about it," Flossie observed, "nor why you should want to help Ma. I'm sure she'll have enough to live very comfortably, only, of course, she must be content to live a little less extravagantly than she did before. I do believe," she added, with a superb air, "in people being content and happy with what they have; it's so much more sensible than always pining after what they haven't got. By the bye, Sarah, we are going to have a dinner-party to-morrow night; I couldn't ask Ma because of her mourning, but if you like to come in in the evening, and bring your violin, we shall be very pleased, I'm sure."
"If you like to ask me as a professional, and pay my fee," began Sarah mischievously.
"Pay your fee! Well, I never! To your own cousin, and when you owe us so much!" Flossie exclaimed.
"I don't think I owe you anything, Flossie, not even civility or kindness," said Sarah coldly; but Mrs. Jones had flounced away in a huff.
"Such impudence!" as she said to her husband afterwards.
Well, Sarah went off on her tour, and won a fair amount of success--enough to make her manager anxious to secure her for the following winter on the same terms. But Sarah had promised Signor Capri to do nothing without his knowledge, and he wrote back, "Wait! Before next winter you may be famous."
But the months passed over, and still fame had not come, except in a moderate degree. The manager was very glad to take Sarah on tour again at a salary advanced to seven pounds a week instead of six, and Sarah was equally glad to go.
In the meantime, she had made a good deal of money by playing at private houses and at concerts. She had taken a well-earned holiday to the Channel Islands, and had given her aunt and the little ones a very good time there, all out of her own pocket, and had added a very liberal sum to the housekeeping purse of the little Queen Anne house at Fulham.
Twice she had dined with the Giaths in Palace Gardens, and had taken her violin because May had not asked her to do so. And more than once she had been asked to go in the evening to grace the rooms of Mrs. Jones--an honour which she persistently declined.
So time went on, and Sarah worked late and early, hoping, longing, praying to be one day a great woman.