“But his name, what was that?”
“I don’t know!”
“Then you are indeed an orphan, poor thing.”
“I have no mother; isn’t that an orphan?”
“Truly it is, poor infant—but where do you live?”
“On the Rock, by the little spring pond; don’t you remember, papa?” said Cora, beginning to brighten up.
“Yes, I remember,” he replied, sinking back into the sorrowful gloom, from which my strange appearance had aroused him; “and this was the child then who made your pretty violet wreath?”
“Mamma smiled, don’t you remember, when she saw me with it on, and said it was so lovely!” answered the child, with animation.
“She never looked on you, my poor darling, without a smile,” answered the father, so sadly that my heart swelled once more.
He seemed to forget me again, and sat gazing wistfully on the floor. Cora, too, was exhausted by excess of weeping, and I saw that her beautiful eyelids were drooping like the overripe leaves of a white rose. With a feeling that it was kind and right, I stole from the room and made my way home. It was a long walk, and I reached the cottage in a terrible state of exhaustion. My kind-hearted bonne took me in her arms without annoying questions, and I sighed myself to sleep on her bosom.