“Oh, she?... She’s a Miss Garlett—yes, a pretty lass, but a poor little body! Her father died not long ago, and now she’s all alone.... She was almost beside herself with grief when they took him away. Now she’s a bit calmer. Every day she goes out and visits him in the graveyard, but otherwise she never goes out and no one comes to see her. And no one came to see them when the old gentleman—in fact, he was not old—was alive. You see he met with an accident—fell off the electric. When they brought him in....”
“Who and what was Mr. Garlett?” asked the other, interrupting her.
“A professor, or a philosopher, or something like that. He gave lessons. That was how he earned their living, I reckon. I’d like to know what the poor little lass will have to live on now. The rent is soon due, and it was always a hard pull to pay the rent.... The two had to be mighty thrifty. They had only one old woman who used to come in every day to help, and they only nibbled—like sparrows. But books! their rooms were just piled up with ’em! He must have been a real bookworm, the poor gentleman! and the little one used to be reading all the time, too.... The only luxury they ever allowed themselves was to go three or four times a month to the fourth gallery of the opera house or to the Burg Theater. But they weren’t never down in the mouth, neither of ’em, in spite of all the worry and their little money; on the contrary, they were as gay as larks—especially the lassie. We always heard her laughing and singing in her room, though outside, to be sure, she was always serious and, so to say, a bit haughty; perhaps she inherited a bit of haughtiness from her departed mamma.”
“Was Mr. Garlett a widower, and how long had he been?”
“Oh, for fifteen years or so. That was quite a romance. His wife was a count’s daughter, it seems. He had been private tutor to her brother at a castle: the young lady fell in love with him—he was a handsome fellow—indeed, he was. They eloped and were married. The parents—mighty stuck-up folks they was—was furious and put a curse on their daughter.”
“Ah, my dear lady, that only happens in old-fashioned novels: parents cursing their children.”
“I don’t know nothing about these things, but this much I know, they wouldn’t have anything more to do with her; never gave her no money, sent back all her letters, and the dainty young lady, who all her life had ridden in kerridges and had her pony and ate nothin’ but cakes and ice cream, and al’ays had noblemen dancing attendance on her,—for she was heiress to a great estate and was as pretty as a picture,—just like her daughter, so folks says,—well, she couldn’t stand poverty and living among common people, and so she just up and died when her little girl was only five years old.”
The stranger arose. “I thank you; I have all the information I wish.”
Franka climbed the stairs up to her rooms, which were situated on the fourth story. Painfully, clinging to the banister, often pausing to get her breath, which always seemed to die away in a trembling sigh, she made her way up. The deepest sigh she drew as she opened the door and entered the anteroom. The anteroom? Really the kitchen; but the kitchen hearth was hidden by a screen. The place was rather dark and chilly. It was April, and the weather was still pretty cold.
Franka passed through this place and pushed open the door of a front room: her bedroom. Here it was brighter and more comfortable. The furnishings were to the last degree simple, not to say shabby, and yet a certain something in the arrangement of the furniture, in the articles and trinkets disposed on the tables and the walls, betrayed a taste for elegance.