"Let us go, Tantie!" said Mildred, clinging to her aunt, who had come to fetch her, and longing unspeakably for the quiet of home again; "I want to get away from all this!"
"The cab's waiting, darling! We're going now," said Mrs. Graham, hastily making Mildred's adieux and her own, and trying to edge her way through the crowded room. A group of people talking together blocked their progress at the door, and as they paused for a moment to find an opportunity of passing, a lady sprang forward and shook Mildred warmly by the hand, a lady whom she recognized at once as the stranger who had spoken to her at Herr Hoffmann's on the day she had first visited his house, and had waited so long for her music lesson.
"My dear, I am charmed! Your master ought indeed to be proud of you! I should have known you the minute you came on to the platform, even without your name on the programme. I am going to Westmorland to-morrow, and I shall be sure to tell your uncle what a clever niece he has. Such music would be enchanting in a drawing-room. I hope I may see you again before long."
"Come, Mildred!" said her aunt, hurrying her away from the effusive stranger. "Here is Herr Hoffmann waiting to say good-bye."
"Mein Freundchen!" cried the Professor, holding his pupil's little hand in a bearlike grip, and relapsing into German in his excitement. "Is it not worth while to have taken trouble? Ze exercises, ze scales, you did not like them at ze time, but they are ze all-necessary foundation of true art. To-night you have shown me that you can make progress. Go on! There is much remaining to be done. Do not let one little applause cause you to think that you can yet play. It is try each time a something more difficult till you can master it, and some day you will thank ze old Professor that he has made you work. Auf Wiedersehen!"
Mildred's signal success at the Students' Concert was a subject of much congratulation to St. Cyprian's. Never before had a pupil at the College made so public an appearance and obtained such an ovation. The newspaper critics highly praised her playing, and several of the most prominent musical people in the city, who had been present on the occasion, congratulated Professor Hoffmann on the result of his teaching. Among these was Mr. Steiniger, a German gentleman of great influence in Kirkton, who was president both of the Freiburg Concerts and of the College of Music, and whose opinion therefore was of considerable value. To her schoolfellows Mildred's laurels amply compensated for the low majority with which they had won the Alliance Eisteddfod. Many girls from the other schools had been at the concert, and it was a great satisfaction to feel that they had heard St. Cyprian's musical champion in such favourable circumstances.