CHAPTER X.
THE GUARDIAN AND HELPER.
Early in the morning, a carriage from Wolfsgarten came for Aunt Claudine and the parrot.
For the thirty years since her marriage with the Professor, Frau Dournay had not passed a day without her sister-in-law; now, for the first time, she was letting her go from her. It seemed to both of them hardly conceivable that they could live apart from each other, but it had been decided upon, and must be.
Sonnenkamp was most politely attentive; he charged the Aunt to consider his house her home, and not to remain more than a few days as a guest at Wolfsgarten. He gave a basket full of carefully-covered grapes and bananas into the coachman's charge; the parrot's cage was on the seat near Aunt Claudine.
The parrot screamed and scolded as they drove off, and kept it up all the way, not liking, apparently, to leave Villa Sonnenkamp.
Herr Sonnenkamp proposed a drive to the Professorin, to help her forget the parting, but she answered, that not by diversion but by quiet reflection, can we compose and reconcile ourselves to the inevitable. Roland looked at her in surprise; these wore Eric's thoughts, almost his very words.
Several days passed quietly at the villa, which was hardly quitted even for visits to the vine-covered cottage. Bella's visit had brought a disquiet to the house, which still hung over them all, and they realized it afresh as they constantly missed the Aunt; Bella had taken something which seemed an essential part of their life. And besides, the house was again without any sound of music.
Eric and Roland were more industrious than ever, for the Mother had asked if she might not be with them in the study-hours, saying that she had never heard any of Eric's teaching. Eric knew that she wished to help him to keep a strict guard over himself; for though not a word had been said, she felt that something must have passed between him and Bella. And she not only wanted to watch over her son at every hour, but to inspire him by her presence to keep true to his duty to Roland.
So she sat with them from early morning through much of the day, breathing low, and not even allowing herself any needlework; and Eric and Roland felt a peculiar of a calm mind, of deep insight, and wide incitement in the presence of a third person, views. At first Roland often looked up at her, but she always shook her head, to remind him that he must give his whole mind to what he was about, and take no notice of her. Eric was completely free from the first hour, when he had caught himself giving such a turn to the lesson that his mother might learn something new, and had met her gaze, which said,—That's not the thing to be considered. He returned to his simple plan, without regard to his mother's presence. She was pleased with the methodical way in which Eric gave his instruction, and knew how to keep his pupil's attention. She listened with pleasure, one day, when he said that Indolence liked to say:—Nothing depends on me, a single individual; but, a nation and humanity consist of individuals; a scholar learns through single hours and days; a fruit ripens by single sunbeams; everything is individual, but the collected individuals make up the great whole. Eric had prepared himself, and read apposite passages from Cicero, and from Xenophon's Memorabilia. Roland must feel that he had the fellowship of the noblest spirits. But when they were alone, his mother said,—"I think that in illustrating everything and trying to give your pupil knowledge, you weaken and loosen his firm hold on fundamental principles."