A heavy, shuddering sigh broke from her lips. The utter need and helplessness of her mother and four smaller sisters, for days deprived of all necessaries of life, even of bread to satisfy their hunger, had driven her from the house, their cries and lamentations still ringing in her ears.
"Poor and friendless, with no one to care for us, and poor, dear mother lying ill," she moaned in a suffocating voice, wiping tears of agony from her white face. "It wrings my heart to see her and the little ones so hungry," she said to herself, sobbing aloud.
Near the Franz Josef's bridge she saw a little tavern. She timidly opened the door and entered, quickly producing the old violin. The instrument was the only bequest of her dear father, who had been a musician, and who had instructed her in this art, detecting at an early age her ardent love of study and thirst for a musical education.
Standing near the open door, she first played an obligato which she executed in masterly fashion, and then commenced to sing an old German song, so touchingly—knowing what was at stake—that the people in the tavern, and many passers-by who stopped in amazement at the door, gazed with wondering eyes at the ragged little dark-eyed girl hardly grown out of her baby shoes; and many of them, moved by deep pity, though poor themselves, tossed one, and some of them two coins into her apron. More they could not afford to give, lest their liberality might eventually expose them to the same plight.
Christine beamed with happiness. When her song was finished, she quickly took out of her apron her gathered treasure, counting it with shining eyes. Twenty kreutzers—she counted them again and again. Her stiff little fingers could not hold all at once, but her eyes, wet with happy emotion, were fastened on each of them, and her heart leaped within her at the sight. So many she had never before earned.
She folded her hands as if in fervent prayer, and lifted her dark eyes to Heaven in gratitude, thinking of the joy she would bring to her mother and half-starved sisters when she returned home with an apron-full of fresh baked rolls.
"Say,—Miss—won't ye let me carry yer—fiddle?"
The whisper sank into her ear. She turned hastily around, and saw a poorly-dressed shoemaker's apprentice standing near, gazing at her with his large blue eyes. In his hands he held an old pair of shoes.
He stood, quite silent, with enthusiasm for Christine's exquisite singing beaming from every feature. Presently, with a timid grin, he held out the pair of shoes.