"Now, little lovebird," she said, turning with her pleasantest smile towards the sick child, whose eyes, she could see, were following all her movements with an almost ardent admiration,—"now I am off to look for a little hat for thyself. I saw one in a shop yesterday, just beside the flower-shop, and it is just the very thing for thee. It is made of brown straw, shady, and yet not too large. I shall not be a moment away."
"Thou art too good, Evelina," cried Violet eagerly. "And if thou seest the policeman tell him that I am going out to-day in my carriage. He will be glad, I know, to hear that, for he is my friend; and I will say to him how good thou art to me."
"Yes, yes," shouted Evelina, turning briskly down the stairs; "if I see him I shall tell him." And Violet, leaning back in her chair, folded her arms on her lap and looked across at the top of the green hill, in whose cool shadows she hoped so soon to be resting.
Evelina was not very long away. She returned blushing and smiling with a pretty brown hat in her hand having a wreath of yellow buttercups twisted round its crown.
"There, darling," she cried, placing it on Violet's head, "is not that lovely? The woman in the shop nearly wept for joy when she heard it was for thee;and she chose this wreath for thee herself. She actually refused to take any money for it, not a penny, though I said if thy father were at home he would insist on paying her. 'Ah, that is another thing,' she said, pinning the flowers round the hat so tastefully. 'I would accept twenty shillings this moment to know he were safe at home.' Was not that good of her?" asked Evelina, tilting the hat a little back on Violet's head. "We must not quite cover up thy face for all that, my angel," she added laughing, "or what would the old policeman say?"
"The policeman!" cried Violet eagerly; "why, didst thou see him?"
"Ah, now indeed I have some news for thee. I met him just at the corner by the flower-shop, and told him all about that promised drive to the hill this afternoon; and what dost thou think? He said if we could wait a while, until his duty was over, he would come with us there himself, and that he would rather draw thee one mile in thy little cart than the king himself in his state coach. I laughed at the old silly. As if he could draw the king one step, let alone the heavy state coach! But he is, after all, a good soul, for he nearly wept with joy at the news that thou wert going out, and asked so many questions about the carriage and the cushions that I thoughtI should never get home. So now I have been across and told little Ella that we shall not be ready just yet awhile; and her mother is delighted at the delay, for the child had just spilt a whole bottle of ink over her dress and pinafore and stockings, and she will require time to make her neat again. She had been crying, too, poor little wretch! for her eyes were sticking out like crabs' eyes; and Fritz had her on his knee, and was cramming bon-bons into her mouth."
"Good old Fritz," said Violet softly.
"Oh, good indeed! thou shouldst have heard all he said, and the names he called me; because why? he thinks thou shouldst not go to the hill without him. But his mother told him that was folly, as the summer would be over before he had done coughing. And then he talked a lot of rubbish about the doctor, and asking his leave; but bah! who listens to such a chattering magpie?"
"Poor Fritz! father promised him that he should be the first to draw me in the carriage to the hill," said Violet, half speaking to herself; but Evelina, who had grown angry, caught the words, and said quickly,—
"Very good. Let Fritz be the first to draw thee to the hill! the policeman and I can well afford to wait for such an honour." Then seeing that the child hadquite failed to take in the meaning of her cutting words, she added in a more kindly tone,—
"See now, it wants nearly two hours to the time when the policeman can come here, and—"
"Two hours!" interrupted Violet, with almost a cry of disappointment.
"Yes, two hours; and so much the better for thee, for now the sun is so hot it would just bake thee into a little pie. There was a child yesterday, Master Fritz said, who went to the hill and got such a headache from standing in a cornfield beside the river that last night they thought it was going to die."
"Oh," said Violet thoughtfully;—she was thinking of the story in the Bible which Fritz had told her one time long ago. "And is it well now, Evelina?"
"I do not know; I did not ask. The policeman can tell thee. He is not such a bad old fellow, after all. He is going to bring out cakes, and strawberries and cream, and a kettle, and I don't know what else, and we are to have tea under the trees. Is not that lovely?"
"Lovely! too, too lovely!" replied Violet, her eyes kindling with a speechless joy. "And perhaps, Evelina, I shall hear the nightingales singing in the woods. Mother used to walk down there with father in the evenings long ago to listen, and once she had me in her arms—father told me so; but then I was only avery small baby. And shall I see glow-worms, too, and those little mice which have wings?"
"Yes, yes, everything," replied Evelina, who was busy buttoning on a pair of very dainty boots: "we shall have a delicious evening, that is certain. And I would have thee go asleep now and think no more about it, and when thou awakest the two hours will be gone, and we shall lift thee straight away into thy carriage, and then hurrah for the hill! Why, thou wilt feel just like a bird escaped from its cage; and when once thou hast stretched thy wings and flown to the woods, I reckon we shall have pretty hard work to keep thee in the house any longer."
"My wings!" echoed Violet in a tone of such concentrated interest that Evelina looked up startled and astonished; "when shall I have wings?"
"Little goose," replied the girl, turning away her head suddenly from the sight of those pleading eyes; "how can I tell thee? Perhaps we shall cheat thee after all of thy wings, when we get thee out into the fresh air and the fields; and then what will thy father think when he comes home?"
"I do not understand what thou meanest," said Violet plaintively.
"Never mind what I mean: wings are all very well, no doubt, for birds and things that cannot walk;but fine fat arms and legs are better still. Ah, thou shouldest see thy cousins at Gützberg; they are something like children. I would not drag one of those fat things to the hill in thy carriage, not for all thou couldst give me."
"But thou rememberest the little sick girl in the book, dost thou not, Evelina?" asked Violet, puzzled and anxious.
"In what book?"
Violet placed her hand on the spotted cover beside her on the table. "The picture is in mother's Bible," she said softly.
"Oh yes, to be sure, I remember all about it; but we need not think about such sad things to-day. Go to sleep now, and I will draw this blind down beside thee and darken the room a bit."
As Evelina stretched up her arms to reach the tassel of the narrow blind beside Violet's chair she caught her by her apron and said earnestly,—
"But thou, Evelina, thou believest that I shall have wings?"
"Of course I do."
"And will it be soon?"
"Oh, how can I tell? before the winter, I daresay."
"Before the winter?" repeated Violet reflectively; "that is not long to wait."
"What a strange child thou art!" cried Evelina, putting her arms suddenly round Violet's neck and kissing her; "why art thou in such a hurry to leave us all? Is not Evelina good to thee?"
"Oh yes, too good; only my back aches so, and the wings are so long coming."
Evelina looked at the little white face turned up to her so wistfully, and said in her softest voice, "Pray to God, darling, for thy wings. He can give them to thee when he likes."
"Yes, I do pray every day, and Fritz too; and thou, Evelina, thou also wilt ask God every morning and every evening when thou sayest thy prayers, wilt thou not?" Evelina suddenly flushed scarlet and turned away her face from the earnest pleading eyes. "Wilt thou not, Evelina?"
"Yes, yes, of course; only do not let us talk any more about wings. Thou wilt be too tired for thy drive. Lie back on thy pillows now and dream of strawberries and cream, and thy friend the old policeman sitting with thee under the trees on the hill, and all the care he will take of thee, and of the long letter we must write by-and-by to thy father of all we have seen and done."
It was the sound of a cannon fired from the fort just across the river that woke Violet from the sleep into which she had fallen, and in which she had lain now peacefully resting for the last two hours.
She did not often sleep so heavily in the day-time, but this afternoon she had been so excited and restless that her little body had felt quite worn out, and she had scarcely lain back on her pillows before a most delicious sleep had overtaken her.
She had dreamt, too, such a lovely dream: a dream that she was out gathering flowers in a wide meadow at the foot of the hill—beautiful blue forget-me-nots and the yellow narcissus; and that morning, beside her and holding her hand, all dressed in white, with beautiful silver wings, was another child whom she seemed to know at once to be the little girl the doctor had told her of, who in the spring time, when the flowers were starting up and the larks werebeginning to sing, had suddenly escaped, like a bird from its cage, and spreading her wings had flown right up to God.
But now, in the dream, she was in the meadow with Violet, holding her hand and leading her along, and pointing out to her the beautiful flowers which were growing here and there through the grass. And Violet wondered even in her dream how it was that she had no pain in her shoulders, and that her feet seemed to carry her along so easily and swiftly over the meadows—sometimes, indeed, they did not seem to touch the ground at all, but only to skim over the heads of the tall grasses; and a delicious breeze was blowing down from the hill and wafting her along towards the spot where the forget-me-nots grew thickest, and where the sweet-scented jonquils stood up so pure and white in their beauty.
And while she was stooping and gathering the blue flowers which she loved the best, she thought she heard a voice calling to her a long way off down the meadow—a very gentle voice, which at first sounded as if Aunt Lizzie were calling to her; but the little girl touched her on the shoulder and said,—
"Violet, dost thou not hear thy mother calling to thee?"
"My mother! where?" and then rememberingsuddenly that her mother was dead, she said very sadly, "It cannot be my mother, for she is not here any longer; she is up in heaven with the angels, and I cannot go to her until God has given me wings."
"Ah, dost thou not know that this is heaven, and that thou hast wings?"
Then Violet, looking up suddenly, saw that the air was full of shining figures flitting to and fro across the sky; and there was a shining hill on which stood a great white throne, and on the steps of the throne the Lord Jesus was standing with a little lamb in his arms; and Violet suddenly felt herself rising up into the air like the angels, and soon she was flying swiftly across the meadow in the direction of the throne, flying, flying ever faster, that she might meet the good Lord Jesus whom she loved so much, and see the lamb that he had folded so closely to his breast.
At last she came to the foot of the shining steps, and the good Lord Jesus was standing there waiting for her with a smile on his face; and she said to him very softly, "Dear Lord Jesus, show me the little lamb whom thou art carrying in thy bosom." And the Lord Jesus answered her, in a low, sweet voice, "Dost thou not know this is the little Violet fromEdelsheim? She has fallen asleep, and I am going to lay her in her mother's arms."
And Violet saw then that it was a little sick maiden that he carried so lovingly; and she stretched up that she might see the little girl's face. And when she did see it, it was quite white, and there were tears upon the cheeks, though the eyes were closed.
But even while she was looking at it wonderingly, the Lord Jesus stooped down and kissed the child on the forehead; and she heard him say in a low voice, as he leaned over her, "No more tears."
Then Violet remembered that she had heard those words somewhere before, and she stirred in her sleep, and stretched out her hand towards the table on which lay her mother's Bible, and the book with the spotted cover. But before she could find them, she awoke with a sudden start and a scream, for, from the fort across the river one of the great cannon had been fired off, and which always shook the town from end to end; and the window-frames were still rattling, and the Noah's ark animals falling down over the cushions beside her, when she awoke.
"What is that?" she cried, hastily clutching at the rails of her chair to draw herself up from her pillows. "Evelina, what was that dreadful noise?"
Either Evelina was not in the room or the noisehad deafened her, for she did not answer Violet's question; and before she could speak again or look round, there was another roar of cannon from the fort, and once more the window-frames rattled and the animals fell pell-mell upon the cushioned window-seat beneath.
"Evelina! Evelina! where art thou? why dost thou not answer?" cried Violet, who, suddenly aroused from a delicious dream of rest and peace, had scarcely yet realized either where she was or what was going on.
She sat up now, and gazed around the room with a flushed face and anxious eyes; but no Evelina was there, though the carriage was still drawn out in the middle of the room, and the new brown hat was lying on the coverlet; and gradually Violet remembered that this was the afternoon that she was to have tea with the policeman and Ella under the trees on the hill.
But surely the afternoon must be almost over now, for the evening shadows were already creeping into the room; and the pigeons were clustering on the window-sill beside her, looking for their usual meal, as they always did ere they went to roost.
"Evelina, where art thou?" she cried once more, as she gazed at the door leading into the little room which once had been her mother's long ago; but noanswer came from there either, only another dreadful roar from the cannon, which put all the pigeons to flight, and pitched Noah's wife headlong on the carpet.
Violet had often heard them firing from the fort before, so, after the first three or four great bangs, it did not frighten her so much, only it made her head ache; but presently, leaning a little forward and looking through the window opposite her chair, she saw now that some great event must have happened, for people were racing down the street eagerly, and some were waving their hats, and some had on no hats at all, while, far off in the distance, she could hear a great sound of voices like a deafening cheer of joy.
Again the cannon roared, and again there came the same hoarse shout, which seemed to come from somewhere down near the barracks. And now the people in the street were shouting also as they ran along; and so eager and breathless was their race, that when a woman stumbled and fell on the pathway no one turned to lift her up, or to notice the white face which for many minutes afterwards remained turned up motionless towards the sky.
At last another woman, dressed in black, came out of a shop opposite, with a cup of water in her hand: she waited until the street was pretty clear, and then,crossing over, she put the cup to the woman's lips and helped to raise her up.
Violet could hear the woman's voice speaking comfortingly to her companion, for the narrow casement which formed part of the great window looking over the street was open, and through it a soft breeze was coming in, which blew straight from the hill; and by-and-by, when the woman who had fainted was able to walk, she saw the other lead her across the street, and she distinctly heard her say, "Ah, is not this good news for the town? Now in Edelsheim we shall have no more tears."
"No more tears!" They were the same words that Violet had just heard in her dream. She listened eagerly if she could hear more; but the woman had evidently gone into the little toy-shop close by, and another roar from the cannon set her trembling again, and her heart beat wildly against her little purple frock as she heard again—and this time nearer than before—a deafening shout of men and women's voices rising high upon the evening air.
"Evelina! Evelina!" she cried, striving with trembling lips to make her voice heard above the din and uproar, "come, come to Violet. Will no one come to Violet?"
But it was quite useless to call or cry out"Evelina." The girl had evidently gone out, and though tears of fear and disappointment streamed from Violet's eyes, and poured down over her little flushed cheeks, no one came to wipe them away or to comfort her.
The cannon, too, roared louder and faster than ever; and all at once the great church bell at the foot of the street began to ring, and clanged out great strokes which set the whole air trembling, so that Violet thought even the blue sky over the house-tops was shaking with the din.
But soon this blue sky began to change to a pale green, and then golden streaks came across it; and presently again broad bands of red, and all the green hill seemed on fire, till at last the great red sun dropped down behind it, and a gray light stole over all; and still Violet sat all alone in the window, while every church bell in the town was jangling, and the roar of voices came up hoarsely from the public gardens down by the barracks.
She could not see across the street to the Adlers' house, for the blind which Evelina had drawn down beside her chair hid their windows from her sight, and there was no one stirring outside who could hear her cry, for the rush of the people towards the market-place was over, and the street had become utterly silent and deserted.
As the darkness crept on, a dreadful fear came over the child's mind that she was going to be left alone in the room all the night—that Evelina had perhaps gone back to Gützberg, or that some accident had happened to her in the street.
The corners of the room were growing dusky, and there were sounds of mice nibbling in the cupboard beside her. The bells in the town ceased ringing, and a dreadful silence seemed to fall over everything. Presently one of the mice stole out of the cupboard, and passing close to the foot of Violet's chair, climbed up the cord of the canary bird's cage, and squeezing itself in through the bars, disappeared in a twinkling.
Even the lantern man had forgotten to come and light the lamp outside her window; and the pigeons had reluctantly deserted their posts on the sill outside, and retired to roost without their evening meal.
"If only I could get out of this chair; if only I could walk; if only some one would come and open the door." And poor Violet moved restlessly to and fro in her chair, and craned her neck to see beyond the strip of narrow blind which hid the opposite house from her view.
The window which looked across to the hill lay wide open, and every now and then a breeze came rushing in, which blew her hair softly about her faceand refreshed her; but the hill itself lay now like a great black heap against the evening sky. No friendly moon was up, to frost the branches of the distant trees with silvery light, and only a few faint stars twinkled now and again through the gathering darkness.
Presently she grew quite desperate, and strove in the foolishness of her fear to free herself from the bands which held her fast in her chair. She clutched at the blind, and tried to drag it down; and she called aloud frantically to Madam Adler, to Evelina, to Ella, to any one, to come and help her. But no one answered her, and she sank back, tired out, on the pillows behind her.
Then some one in a neighbouring house began to sing, and she felt comforted. The first note of a human voice, which sounded not so far off, gave her some confidence, and she dragged herself up painfully and listened.
It was a song which she had heard before, but at first she could not remember the words. The air was intensely sad, for Evelina had sung it one night when Violet was lying awake in her bed, and she remembered that she had put her fingers in her ears that she might not hear the words; but now, with a strange eagerness, she leaned forward.
The woman was singing with all her heart. Shescarcely touched the notes of the old piano on which she was accompanying herself; and by-and-by the words came out with a cruel clearness upon the evening air.
Violet knew now who it was. It was the woman who kept the little toy-shop a few doors off, and whose husband, Ella told her, had been killed in the war.
She had a little spinet, not very musical, on which Violet had often heard her play in the pleasant spring evenings before the war began; but, until this evening, the spinet had been silent for many a long day, and the woman's voice had been silent too. To-night it seemed as if she must cry out to some one,—
"My love is dead, and I am left alone."
"My love is dead, and I am left alone."
"My love is dead, and I am left alone."
"My love is dead, and I am left alone."
Violet listened so earnestly to the words, she was so anxious not to lose one of them, that for a time she forgot her own sorrows, and only thought of the poor woman who was never to see her husband any more, and whose heart seemed so terribly sad in that house only a few doors off.
But presently the mouse plumped down out of the cage overhead almost upon her very knees, and startled her so that she screamed aloud; indeed she screamed several times, and clutched once more at the window-blindto try and drag it aside. And then she paused, for she fancied she had heard a step in the street beneath; and by-and-by she was sure there was a footstep slowly and stealthily creeping up the stairs towards the door of her room.
But no one knocked or asked permission to enter; only there was a slight rustling against the wood, as if some one were waiting and listening outside.
Violet, whose heart had leaped up with joy at the first sound of a human step, now felt terrified. A sudden sickness came over her; the wind from the hill blew in chilly through the window, and seemed to pass over her forehead in waves of ice. Her hands grew damp and cold; and the voice outside, singing in its pain "so quite alone," appeared to her to come from miles away and in a kind of curious dream. She fancied that it was the little girl in the book with the spotted cover who was sitting in a window somewhere "so quite alone," and crying out to the Lord Jesus across the roofs and the distant steeple.
But in a moment, and before she had time to reason out this thought or to wonder whether she was awake or dreaming, there was a crash—a loud crackling as if all the houses in Edelsheim were falling to pieces; and as Violet, completely startled out of her faintness, sat up and looked out of the window, it appeared toher that the gray clouds over the hill had suddenly split open, and that hundreds of fairy snakes were rushing up with a swift fury through the sky. This was immediately succeeded by the same loud sound of voices which she had heard so often through the evening; and then in a moment the fairy snakes were gone, and the sky was full of pale red and green stars falling softly in a shower of beauty to the earth.
"Evelina!" she cried once more, in a piteous entreaty, full of the agony of fear, "Evelina! where art thou?"
There was a knock at the door now; and Violet, forgetful, in her new terror, of the step she had heard a moment ago on the stairs, cried out eagerly, "Come in."
The door opened. Her eyes were still full of the red and green stars which she had seen falling outside over the dark outline of the hill, so for a moment she was dazzled, and could not see who had entered; but all at once, as the figure drew quite close to her chair, she called out loudly and lovingly, "My friend! my friend!" and threw her arms round the neck of the old policeman.
"Ah, thou art frightened, little maiden," he said softly; "and quite alone," he added, looking keenly around the room as he knelt down beside her chairand took the two icy hands in his. The action and the tenderness of the touch brought back for a moment the thought of her father.
"Yes, oh so frightened," she said, "and so lonely;" and she laid her head wearily against the shoulder of her protector. "It was so good of thee to come." Then suddenly she turned her face inwards against his cloak, for once again there came that fearful crackling noise down by the hill, and hundreds of fiery snakes again rushed upwards athwart the dark gray sky.
"There, there! little darling, sweetest child! thou must not be so afraid; there is nothing to frighten one, only splendid fireworks which the people in the town are sending up to show their joy."
"Fireworks! and are they only fireworks?" gasped Violet, still keeping her face pressed in close to the old man's heart; "and thou art sure that they are only fireworks?"
"Yes; look out now and see how lovely they are. Blue and yellow and red stars are falling to the ground."
"I do not like to look, it makes my heart go so fast."
There was no need to tell him that fact, for the little fluttering heart was beating at that moment with terrifying speed against his bosom; so he rose upand drew down the blind across the window, and then he returned quietly to the chair and placed his arm tenderly around the little trembling figure.
"And hast thou been long alone, poor little maiden?" he asked softly, as he lifted the damp hair off her forehead and stroked her cheek.
"Yes, a long time," she sighed.
"Where is thy maid?"
"I do not know. I awoke, and she was not here. It was quite bright daylight—oh, such long hours ago. And I was to go in the carriage father made for me to the hill, and Ella too, and—" Violet paused and hesitated, and a burning blush covered all her face. She had remembered suddenly about the tea under the trees on the hill, and that the old policeman was to have been there too.
"Well," he said curiously, as she paused and hesitated.
"Then I awoke, and all the people were running screaming down the street, and the bells made such a noise, and I was frightened."
"And no one was here to tell the good news?"
"What good news?"
"Ah, now I have something to gladden thy poor little heart with—great news. There has been a great victory for us. The war, people think, is over;and soon all our loved ones may come home to us again."
"My father?" cried Violet, sitting suddenly upright in her chair and gazing into the policeman's face with eyes which, even in the gloom of the shaded room, shone with a more wonderful light than the violet stars which were falling again in a shower of beauty on the hill outside.
"Yes, thy father, dearest maiden; he will soon be home: and that is why the people ran so fast in the street this afternoon, and why they are so noisy now, sending up rockets and making such a riot, screaming and shouting."
"How soon?" asked Violet in a scarcely audible voice, for the sick faintness she had felt before was returning.
"Ah, that I have not heard; but if all be true it cannot be very long—a month or so at most."
Violet sighed unconsciously. "I am so—so tired," she said, almost under her breath.
"Poor little maiden! it is weary work waiting."
"When the lambs are very tired, and cannot walk any more, the Lord Jesus lifts them in his arms and carries them, does he not?" she said dreamily.
"Yes, yes, of course."
"And dost thou know, my friend, that I saw thatlamb's face, and it was Violet's; and the Lord Jesus was going to put her into her mother's arms to rest herself."
"When? where?" asked the policeman, growing frightened at the words which the child was so slowly uttering; and even in the darkness he could see the strange paleness of the little face.
"In the meadow with the other little girl."
"What little girl?"
"The little one who sent me this watch. She was a very sick little girl like me—oh, so sick the doctor said; but she flew up in the spring with the flowers and the larks to heaven, and she—"
At this moment a loud clattering on the stairs outside made itself heard over everything, and the door of the room burst open with a startling haste.
It was Ella, breathless and panting loudly, who, rushing blindly forward in the darkness, first fell over the handle of the carriage which stood in the middle of the room ready for its first journey, and then over a low stool by the stove. She recovered herself quickly, however, and made for the corner where the dim outline of Violet's head was visible against the holland blind.
"Violet, hast thou heard the news? Evelina has stopped to buy thee a cake at the shop, so I ran onever so fast to tell it to thee first. There is a great battle which is all over, and we have a great victory and lots and lots of people killed, and a whole town tumbled down, and the man with the big nose, the grand emperor we saw in the picture, is all beaten into little pieces, and had to give up his sword to our king, and he will soon be put in prison; is not that splendid? And they sent up fire into the sky and frightened Ella, and lots of it tumbled down again, and stars and blue things; and a great red-hot stick, fell on the shoulders of the orange-girl and made her give such a hop and a scream. And—and—who is that sitting in the window beside thee?" Ella paused, her breath almost gone, and not a little frightened at the strange figure sitting wrapped in a cloak beside Violet's chair.
"Will Evelina soon be here?" asked Violet plaintively; for the noise and the fuss were overpowering her.
"Yes; Evelina is here," replied a voice at the door. "Ah, poor little maiden! all in the dark. But it is not my fault, as I will explain to thee. See, here is a lovely cake I have bought for thy supper. Thou wert so fast asleep I just slipped down a moment to hear the grand news, and then the crowd was so great one could not budge a foot. I thought ahundred times of thee and thy carriage, but we could never have dragged thee a foot through the throngs of people: and besides, that faithless old policeman never turned up, and I suppose forgot all about thee; but I will make him answer for it to-morrow," she added with a light laugh.
"The policeman is here to answer for himself," said a voice coming out of the darkness; and between Evelina and the window there rose up a figure tall and dark, and to her eyes terrible to look at.
"Oh! who is that?" she cried hastily.
But no one replied to her question; only the figure in the window bent down low over the chair on which Violet sat, and said softly in her ear,—
"Dearest little maiden, the old policeman was not faithless; he did not forget thee, but he was sent for by his captain, and had to go to the gardens to keep order. Please God, to-morrow I will take thee to the hill. And now thou wilt say 'Good-night,' wilt thou not? and go to bed and rest, and dream of the good news of the home-coming, and the good father's joy to see his Violet once more. Good-night, little heart's love."
Violet stretched up her arms and drew the kind grave face down to her.
"Good-night, my friend," she said lovingly.
"Ah, now I can hear thy watch ticking," he said in a hoarse whisper, "and it seems to say something to me."
"What does it say?"
"It says, 'Forget me not.'"
"What?" said Violet, clutching eagerly at his coat; but he had stood up now and was fixing his helmet firmly on his head. Evelina, abashed and confounded, had moved noiselessly into the inner room, and Ella was gaping with open mouth at Violet's friend.
"Good-night," he said once more, in a hoarse voice; "and to-morrow, if all be well, we shall have tea under the trees on the hill."
"Yes, yes, yes," cried Ella joyfully, and forgetting her shyness she flung her fat arms around the knees of the advancing policeman; "and Ella may come too, may she not?"
"Certainly; Miss Ella must come also. And now thou wilt take my hand, and I will leave thee at thy mother's house, for the little maiden in the chair is very tired, and she must sleep and rest.—Good-night," he cried once more as he reached the door and looked back.
"Good-night," she replied with eagerness; and then in a low voice he heard her say softly, "Forget me not."
The next morning rose beautiful and bright and fair. The town was gay as gay could be; flags were hung from almost every window, and the hum of a great content seemed to fill the air.
In Violet's room all was still. The carriage had been pushed back into the corner of the room, and the little girl was asleep. She had been sleeping nearly all the morning; indeed so profound was her repose that Evelina had grown nervous and summoned the doctor, whose carriage she had seen outside the toy-shop door.
He came in quietly and stood beside the bed. The child's breathing was quick and regular, and her hand lay softly open upon the counterpane. "How long has she slept like this?" he asked in a low voice of Evelina, who stood with tearful eyes near the window.
"Ever since last night when I put her to bed. Itwas the news of the victory, sir, which I think upset her."
"Who told her of it?"
"Little Ella, sir, Madam Adler's daughter."
"Ah, of course, of course, children will talk; and she must have heard it some time or other. Has she spoken at all since morning?"
"A few words, sir, but not much sense in them; about larks and flowers, and about wings—she is always rambling on to me about having wings."
"She will soon have them," said the doctor shortly.
"What!" said Violet, opening her eyes suddenly and looking up; "is that true? will Violet soon have wings?"
"Yes, my poor little child, very soon."
"Oh, how beautiful! how lovely!" she said with a sigh of the utmost content. Then turning her head suddenly, she said quickly, "Fritz, dost thou hear what the doctor says? Violet will soon have wings." Then she closed her eyes again and fell asleep.
"We can do nothing for her," said the doctor, as he moved aside from the bed. "This stupor that she has fallen into is the result of the shock she received yesterday; for in her state good news is almost as disturbing in its results as bad. I think she may awake out of this sleep and be perhaps none theworse, but we cannot tell. God is very merciful, and the thread of her life is in his hands."
"Yes, sir," said Evelina faintly.
"Has she spoken at all to-day of her father?"
"No, sir, not exactly; only once she said something about a great victory, and smiled a little."
The doctor turned back and looked again at the quiet face on the pillow, and repeated in a low voice several times the words, "A great victory." "Yes, poor Violet! thy victory too is close at hand; and then cometh the peace which passeth all understanding."
"I shall come again to-night," he said, as he turned away towards the door; "and meanwhile no one must enter this room to disturb her, nor must she be left alone for a moment. Remember, she has been intrusted to your care by her father, and to mine, and we are responsible for her."
"Yes, sir; I shall watch her very carefully," replied Evelina humbly.
When the doctor was gone, Evelina sat down on the chair by the stove and cried bitterly, for a miserable feeling of guilt was over her. The smile on Violet's face was more difficult for her to look at now than the wakeful restlessness of pain and weariness; indeed everything in the room seemed to reproach herthis morning: the carriage standing in the corner; the little brown hat with its wreath of buttercups, which something in Evelina's heart told her would never be asked for again; the cake, which had not been tasted; the window-sill littered with the fallen animals which had been shaken from their usual resting-place by the firing of the cannon; and a kind of dull consciousness resting over all that the end was close at hand, and that the child lying so quietly on the bed yonder was, oh so near heaven;—and she—where was she? and what did she know of that peace which the doctor said passed all understanding?
She stood up presently, and going over to the bed, opened the dead mother's Bible. Between the leaves lay the picture which Violet loved so much to look at. Evelina's eye fell on the centre plate, where the little girl was represented seated all alone in the garret-room, looking out over the roofs and the chimneys towards the far-off sky.
"All alone," she murmured, reading the print beneath it; then turned on hastily, for it seemed to remind her painfully of her conduct yesterday. Presently she came on the lock of golden hair which Violet prized so highly, the long, glistening curl tied up with a knot of black ribbon, and she lifted it up carefully and looked at it with interest; thenwalking softly across to a little mirror which hung against the wall, she laid it against her own golden curls, and said under her breath, "Just the same colour." She put back the hair into the Bible; and then some other thought following quickly on the comparison, she went over to the trunk which stood beside Violet's bed, and, lifting the lid noiselessly, drew out once more from the corner the hat trimmed with the blue forget-me-nots, which she carried into her own room and presently closed the door.
Meanwhile Violet, quite unconscious that her most precious possessions were being ruthlessly trifled with in the adjoining chamber, slept on quietly. She did not rouse up until quite late in the afternoon, when she saw Evelina sitting in the window-seat as usual, and knitting stockings for the Gützberg children.
"I am going soon to see father," she said softly; but at the words, Evelina, who was in a reverie, started violently, and almost let the knitting slip from her fingers.
"Aunt Lizzie will be glad when father comes home; will she not, Evelina?"
"Yes, of course; every one will be glad."
"And the children, the little cousins at Gützberg,—will not they too be delighted?"
"Oh, they are too young to know such things."
"But they will be watching all this time for thee to go back."
"So thou art thinking already of sending me back to Gützberg?"
"No, no," cried Violet, blushing hotly; "I do not want to send thee away, only Aunt Lizzie said she could spare thee a little while, and now it is so long since father went; and when he comes home he will take care of me all day long, and never be the least bit tired; and I will tell father how good thou hast been to me all this long time."
"I had a letter from thy aunt this morning," said Evelina, turning away her face towards the window; "only a few lines. She is coming over here in a few days to see thee; and probably if thy father returns I shall go back with her. She sent thee her love, and she is making thee a little cloak to wear when thou goest out in thy carriage."
"Ah, how good. I will wear it when father takes me out; that will not be long to wait."
When the doctor came again in the evening, he was quite delighted with the brightness of the little face, and with the rare happy smile which was lighting up all its features.
Violet chatted to him more naturally than she had done for many a long day. She showed him hercarriage; and told him of the cloak Aunt Lizzie was making for her; and laughed when she said how the cannon-shot had thrown down Noah's wife and all the animals.
"I may see Ella to-morrow, may I not?" she asked wistfully, as he moved towards the door.
"Certainly; if she is not too noisy."
"Oh, Ella is always good," she cried joyously; "and I am never lonely when she is here."
Madam Adler, too, came across in the evening. Her heart was full of anger against Evelina for having deserted her charge the day before; but when she entered the room and found Violet sitting on Evelina's knee by the stove, with her arms round the girl's neck, who was singing to her, she thought the reprimand would be ill-timed, and she determined to wait for a better opportunity.
It was not many days before the town of Edelsheim awoke to the fact that the war was not over, and that though the French emperor was a prisoner, France seemed determined to fight to the bitter end.
The gay flags which had been hung out of the windows so joyfully were now rolled up again and put aside, and the people went about their work with dejected faces, awaiting the dread tidings that their loved ones were ordered to march forward towards Paris, and fight the enemy there.
But Violet knew nothing of all this. Secure in the certainty of her father's speedy return, she sat daily in the window watching. She very seldom spoke now; it seemed to tire her. But she smiled to herself much oftener than she had hitherto done, and waved her little thin hand to Fritz, who was ever on the watch in the house opposite; andconstantly, in the warm autumn evenings, when the windows of both houses were open, he called across to her and told her his news. Violet smiled and nodded her head, but she had no strength to call back again, nor even to draw up the cord of the little basket into which Fritz was constantly dropping little gifts and scraps of paper, on which were printed in large letters messages of love and comfort:—"Fritz will soon be well enough to see Violet"—"Fritz is making a boat for Violet;" and once or twice, in a very closely-folded message, were the words, "Fritz is always asking God to make Violet well."
But at last there came a message from Fritz which roused her for a time out of her lethargy, and set her heart beating wildly.
It was a beautiful autumn evening; the town was rosy red in the sunset, and all the casements of the oriel window lay wide open. Violet, who had not spoken for several hours, was lying back on her pillows half sleeping, half waking, with her eyes dreamily fixed on the hill, which was wrapped in a soft purple mist. The canary bird was picking out the loose feathers from its wings in the cage overhead; and the old jackdaw on the opposite side of the street, for a wonder was at rest, with his head tucked under his wing.
Fritz for a long time had been making signals to Violet from the high-up dormer window of the house; but her face had been turned away, and though her eyes were fixed on the far-off hill, she saw nothing but a waving meadow bright with flowers, over whose green fragrant grass she was passing with a delicious freedom, her feet not actually touching the ground, only here and there skimming over the cool meadow grass, while a refreshing air wafted her along without fatigue and without pain.
She often had this fancy now, that she was floating along over the earth, that she was free from the ache in her back and the weary heaviness of her limbs; and this afternoon she was listening again to that voice from the meadow saying, "I am going to lay this poor tired lamb in its mother's bosom."
But all at once, when she was seeking once more to see the face of the child which the Lord Jesus held so lovingly in his arms, the basket-bell rang with a sharp tinkle overhead, and she awoke from her dream to find herself no longer wandering amid green pastures, but propped up among her pillows, oh so tired, and with a sudden tearful longing to lay her head against some loving heart and be at rest.
At the sound of the bell, Evelina, who had been dozing also in a chair near the stove, started upangrily, and going over to the window, looked down into the street.
"Ha! it is just as I thought, thou little donkey. Hast thou no sense, Master Fritz, but to go and ring bells in people's ears when they are asleep? See, now, thou hast startled Violet out of her dreams, and she will be ill all the night."
"No, no," said Violet eagerly; but there were sudden tears of distress and weakness standing in her uplifted eyes.
"Look in the basket, Violet," cried Fritz, taking no notice of Evelina's wrath; "there is something in it that I want thee to see, and it is all—" Before, however, Fritz could finish his sentence, his mother had appeared in the doorway, and seizing Fritz by the collar of his coat, had dragged him backwards into the bakery.
"I will not have thee disturbing Violet with thy folly," she said angrily, and pushed him into the back passage.
Meantime Evelina, her own curiosity aroused, had drawn up the little cord from which dangled the basket.
"It is uncommonly light," she said, as she lifted it in at the window. "It strikes me, if I am not mistaken, that Master Fritz is at his old pranks again.Yes, it is just as I thought; the basket is quite empty. It is just a silly trick he has played upon thee, and nothing else." Evelina turned the basket upside down as she spoke, and shook out some old dried moss and withered leaves, and a little scrap of dirty paper folded into a minute size, which fluttered down and lit on the window-seat beside Violet.
"Little wretch! I shall box his ears the next time I see him," cried Evelina angrily. "To come and waken people up for such a senseless joke."
"There was something in the basket," pleaded Violet in a low voice.
"I tell thee there was not," replied Evelina sharply; "unless thou callest a handful of dead leaves something."
The child's eyes rested wistfully on the little scrap of folded paper lying almost within her reach on the window-seat, but she said nothing. When Evelina was vexed, Violet felt afraid of her; and besides, she was down on her knees now gathering the moss and dirt off the floor, and she did not like to trouble her further.
But Evelina's tempers were never of long duration. When she stood up again she was smiling, and said with a laugh,—
"I have a mind to go across the street and tie thisbasket on to Master Fritz's back and hunt him up and down the town for his pains. At any rate, the next time it happens I shall just cut the cord, and then there will be an end of it all."
"No, no, thou wilt not do that, Evelina," cried Violet, stretching out her hands eagerly.
"There is no saying what Evelina might do when she is angry," replied the girl, laughing lightly as she dropped the basket once more out of the window. "Ah, there is the newsman in the street and lots of people gathered round him; I must run down for a moment and see what fresh telegrams have come in. I shall just buy a paper from him and be back immediately."
Violet nodded her head silently, and Evelina, having again arranged the cord in its place, left the room.
When the door was closed, and Evelina's flying footsteps were distinctly audible in the street beneath, Violet tried to stretch out her hand for the piece of paper which had fluttered down out of the basket on to the window-seat beside her; but she found, to her grief, that it was just an inch or two beyond the reach of her finger-tips. She looked round for something with which she could draw it nearer to her, and at last, after some difficulty, she succeeded with the help of the spotted book in pushing it to theedge of the cushion, where she could stretch out her hand and take hold of it.
Even this little exertion tried her. She panted, and for some moments did not attempt to open the paper. Her heart beat quickly and her hands trembled. She did not believe that Fritz had been playing a trick upon her, and she guessed that there was some special piece of news to be found in the little crumpled scrap which she held tightly pressed up in her hand.
At last she opened it out, and as she read the words printed across it in large letters she gave quite a sharp cry and started up in her chair.
"Ella is going to be an angel, and have wings."
This was the whole message—no explanation, no other word to give a hint or a reason, and no Fritz at the window opposite to make things clear.
She stared again at the words. Her cheeks grew crimson, her eyes darkened, tears came into them and fell upon the dirty scrap of paper on her knee.
Ella was going to have wings! Ella, who could run and jump and walk and was never tired; who could laugh and sing and hop and follow Fritz wherever he went. Ella was going to have wings!
And Ella had no hump upon her back, no pain, no tiredness. She had not been waiting for themlong, oh, so long as she had! A great lump came struggling up into her throat, drops of sweat gathered on her forehead. The book with the spotted cover lay across her knees; the tears came splash, splash upon the yellow binding; and Violet, bending her head down lower, said in a sobbing whisper,—
"Oh, dear Lord Jesus! canst thou not also give wings to Violet? Violet is so tired, and cannot walk or run." Then followed another long sob and a shower of burning tears, in the midst of which the door opened and Evelina came laughing in, her eyes brimming with fun and her whole manner joyous and gay.
"Did any one ever hear of such an idea?" she cried, flinging herself down on a chair. "To make that great fat Miss Ella an angel! the very thought of it gives one almost a fit. I could almost die of laughter.—But what is the matter with the child? What art thou crying for, Violet?" and Evelina rose and came over to Violet, whose head was bent upon her purple frock, and her face was covered with her hands.
"What troubles thee? Look up, Violet, and hear my news. There is going to be a great procession through the town. The general is coming home wounded from the war. Such a brave old fellow!he has had both his arms shot off, and two of his sons have been killed in the battle of Sedan; so all Edelsheim is going out to meet him on his return and give him a welcome. And there are to be hundreds of girls dressed in white, who are to sing beautiful songs and scatter flowers on the road; and a whole band of little angels, who are to have wings, and they are to sing too. And just imagine—Ella over the way is to be an angel! Such an idea! one might just as well make an angel of a little fat, squeaking pig; but of course it is for her voice they want her. Ah, Miss Violet, it is a shame for thee to go on crying so when I have brought thee home such a grand piece of news. What ails thee? Look up and tell me."
"I want to be an angel too," cried Violet with a bursting sob.
"An angel! Ah, is that it? Poor little darling! thou wilt be an angel soon enough."
"But Ella will have wings first, and will fly away from Violet, and Violet is so lonely."
"Miss Ella fly!" cried Evelina, throwing up her hands again and bursting into a fresh fit of laughter. "Why, it would take all the wings in the town to lift her off her feet. No, no; do not be afraid; Miss Ella will not fly."
"Could not I go with the other little angels?" sobbed Violet.
"Ah, no, no, my treasure; that would be impossible. Thou canst not walk, and it is a long way to the station."
"But if I had wings."
"Yes, yes, of course, if thou hadst wings that would be another thing; then thou couldst fly wherever thou hadst a wish," said Evelina soothingly, for the pleading eyes so full of their sorrow pained her.
"And the doctor said, soon, very soon, Violet would have them; and perhaps God would give Violet wings that very day, and then she could go with all the other angels. Is it not so, Evelina?"
"Yes, yes; of course, when the Lord Jesus gives Violet wings then she can go where she likes."
"I will ask him, yes, I will ask him," said Violet softly; and through her tears there broke a sweet struggling smile as she lifted her eyes to the sky above the shadowy hill and held communion with her God.
The morning of the procession had come—such a glorious morning!—bright sunshine, blue sky, and a soft breeze blowing down from the hill. At an early hour the whole town was astir. Every one was anxious to join in or to see this procession; for the brave general for whose home-coming it was planned was the favourite of the town, and all were anxious to do him honour.
It seemed to them only a few days ago that they had seen his sturdy figure walking down the shady alley accompanied by his sons, fine fair-haired young fellows, who had since then fallen wounded to death in the dreadful battle of Sedan.
Those whose work could be got over in the early morning rose with the sun, so as to leave the afternoon free to do honour to their general. The washerwomen at the river's edge were battering their linen on the stones from early dawn, while the usuallysulky river crept in to-day bright with little rivulets of gold; and the walls of the gray old castle were gay with flags, whose shining spear-heads caught the first rays of the rising sun.
In the streets the pigeons were already pecking happily, for the noisy tread of the early risers had disturbed them; and beneath the windows of Violet's house a whole cluster were collected, Madam Adler having already risen and thrown out to them a large sieveful of corn which she had brought from the bakery for the purpose.
She looked up at Violet's window before she turned to re-enter the shop, and sighed heavily. She had been, in the evening before, to see her little darling, and to show her Ella dressed in her angel's garments,—soft white raiment, and glistening wings. But the effect on Violet had been so overpowering that Madam Adler had hurried Ella away, and had herself been obliged to listen to a lecture from Evelina for having so thoughtlessly broken in on the child's evening sleep and set her heart beating with a distress too deep for words.
Madam Adler had made no reply to Evelina's reproaches, for her own heart was too full of pain, to see the great change which had lately come over the little wan face; and when she saw the sudden lustrewhich burned in Violet's eyes at the first sight of Ella with the white dress and the shining wings, and then listened to the passionate sobbing which followed, she had gone back to her own house overwhelmed with grief at the result of her visit, and she longed for the day of the procession to be over, that the subject might pass away from Violet's mind, and Ella's wings be folded up and put away.
Ella, upstairs in her room, was awake also this morning at an unusually early hour. She could not rest, with the joyous expectation of being an angel and walking in the great procession; and ever so many times she had risen and gone over and touched with her soft, fat fingers the wings so beautifully tipped with silver and shining with stars, and which lay upon the table in the middle of the room: but every time she looked at them a sorrowful remembrance came over her of Violet's face and her bitter tears; and at last the little girl walked back to her bedside, and kneeling down said softly,—
"Oh, thou good Lord Jesus, be very kind to poor Violet in the house opposite, and give her wings too, like Ella!"
She looked up very steadily at the ceiling as she said these words. Her wide-open eyes seemed to see far up above the roof and the chimneys and thestorks. The soft yellow hair was straggling out in long loops and curls from under her linen night-cap, her elbows rested on the bed, and her dimpled fingers were clasped. Was she, after all, so unlike an angel, this "fat Miss Ella," at whose appearance Evelina could not restrain her laughter?
When Ella had finished her little prayer, and was just saying "Amen" in a rather loud voice, the door opened and Fritz walked in.
"What art thou doing, Ella?" he said rather curiously. "Out of bed already, at this early hour, and saying thy prayers! Dost thou think thou art an angel already?"
Ella blushed crimson as she stood up, and she shuffled her little pink feet over each other uneasily on the carpet.
"It was only about Violet," she said nervously, and her eyes travelled back again to the wings shining so softly on the dark oil-cloth cover of the table.
"So thou hast been thinking of her too," said Fritz, drawing a deep breath. "I have thought of nothing else all night, and that is why I too am up so early, and dressed, as thou seest, for going out."
Ella had noticed that Fritz had his cap in his hand, and she had wondered at it.
"Well, well?" she asked open-mouthed.
"Well, I am going off to the police barrack to try and see Violet's friend. Mother told me last night that she heard the procession was not to pass through our street at all, but was to turn up by the cathedral and across the market square to the station; and then poor Violet could not see it at all, or hear any of the music. Mother says she is glad, but I am not a bit; for look at this, Ella." Fritz drew from his trowsers pocket a little crumpled scrap of paper and spread it out upon the palm of his hand. "She dropped this out of the window to me last night;—and I know this one thing." Fritz spoke in a curious, husky voice, and turned away his face.
"What thing, Fritz?"
"Violet will never send me any more notes. Look at this;—I was half an hour before I could make it out."
There was a large V, and then a lot of trembling up-and-down strokes without any pretence at printing, only there was a dot over one stroke, and a letter something like a "t" at the end; then came the word "wants," pretty fairly readable; then another trembling set of meaningless lines, and the word "angels;" and again a word which Fritz after much trouble had made out to be "sing."
"Violet wants to hear the angels sing;" that was her message.
"And I am going straight now to the barracks, and I shall show this to our policeman, and he shall go to the general's wife, and they shall arrange together that the processionisto go through this street. I have settled it all in the night when I was lying awake."
"Perhaps the general's wife will not do it."
"Perhaps she will, thou little ass," replied Fritz curtly, as he banged the door after him and went out.
"Ah, if I could give Violet my wings," said Ella softly, as, once more returning to the table, she touched the silver pinions which lay spread out upon it shiningly; "but the good Lord Jesus is much much kinder than Ella, and perhaps he will lend her some wings just for this one day."
Ella went over to the casement and looked across and down at the closed shutters of Violet's window. She was singing softly to herself the words of the angels' song, which her mother had with much care been teaching to her for the last few days,—