"Ay," put in Hans, "and Mütterchen, she will bring her violin, and she and I will play together some of the music you and father love; and she will, I know, be glad to hear that through Sir Richard Stanford and Herr Müller I am to become a pupil in the Conservatorium of Leipsic. I can hardly believe it is true."
"Ay, my son, thou art a lucky one, and ye owe it all to Frida herself. Was it not she who told Sir Richard about your love of music, and got Herr Müller to promise to hear you play? Ah! under the good God we owe much to the 'woodland child.'"
And so it fell out that after a few more happy weeks spent at Cannes and Grasse, Frida found herself once more an inmate of Miss Drechsler's pretty little house at Dringenstadt, and able every now and then to visit and help her friends in the Forest.
"Ah, Mütterchen," she said as she threw herself into Elsie's arms, "here I am again your foundling child, come to live near you, and so glad to see you all once more.—And Hans, why, Hans, you look a man now; and oh, I am so pleased you are to go to Leipsic! You must bring down your violin now and then to Miss Drechsler's, and let us play together. I am sure you will be a great musician some day, Hans."
The young man (for such he now was) looked much gratified at his friend's hopeful words, and said, "If I do turn that, I shall owe it all to you, Frida."
But the girl interrupted his speech by saying, "Now, Mutter, let me see little Gretchen;" and next minute she was stooping over the bed where lay the sleeping child—the very bed whence the spirit of the blind child whom she had loved so dearly had taken its flight to the heavenly land.
"What a darling she looks, Elsie! Oh, I am glad God has sent you this little treasure! She will cheer you when Hans has gone away and her father is all day in the Forest."
"Yes," said Elsie, "she is indeed a gift from God; and you, Frida, must teach her, as you taught her parents and Anna, the 'way of life.' And O Frida, thou must go down to the Dorf, for all the people there are so eager to see thee once more. And now that thou hast grown a young lady, they all wonder if thou still beest like the woodland child, and wilt care about the like of them, or if perchance thou hast forgotten them."
"Forgotten them! O Elsie, how could they think so? Could I ever forget how they and you gave of their little pittance to maintain the child found in the Black Forest, and how you all lavished kindness on her who had neither father nor mother to care for her? I must go at once and ask them what I have done that they should have thought so badly of me even for a minute. Don't you know, Mutter, that I have given up the going to England to live with Miss Drechsler at Dringenstadt, in order that I may often see my dear friends in the Forest; and that shall be my life-work, unless"—and here the girl looked sad—"any of my own friends find me out and claim me."
"Hast had any clue to them, Frida?" asked Elsie.