The First Violin A Novel

MISS HALLAM. Wonderful weather for April! Yes, it certainty was wonderful. I fully agreed with the sentiment expressed at different periods of the day by different members of my family; but I did not follow their example and seek enjoyment out-of-doors - pleasure in that balmy spring air.

Trouble - the first trouble of my life - had laid her hand heavily upon me.

The world felt disjointed and all upside-down; I very helpless and lonely in it.

I had two sisters, I had a father and a mother; but none the less was I unable to share my grief with any one of them; nay, it had been an absolute relief to me when first one and then another of them had left the house, on business or pleasure intent, and I, after watching my father go down the garden-walk, and seeing the gate close after him, knew that, save for Jane, our domestic, who was caroling lustily to herself in the kitchen regions, I was alone in the house.