“Yes, it is nice, is it not,” assented Anna with pride in her face. “But, my dear, you are tired from the journey and will enjoy a little luncheon, won’t you? Of course. I’ll have it ready very soon; but come to your own room first. You see I have it all ready for you. Ach, won’t Anton feel honored when he sees you here!”
It was not until after luncheon, when the two were seated together in “the best room,” that Helène found her opportunity to tell Anna of the real reason which had brought her to Altenberg. The nurse listened quietly at first, but towards the end of the narrative she became so excited that she kept jumping from her seat, pressing her hands together out of sheer indignation, and ended by embracing and petting her “child” with all the sympathetic words her full heart enabled her to murmur.
“Oh, the mean, nasty cats,” she cried. “I knew from the first that you would never be happy in a place like that. I told Josephine so. You did quite right in leaving as you did. You will stop here, which is your proper place now; and you can stay as long as you wish. We shall have the loveliest time, and the house and everything is yours. The idea, their not letting you go in mourning for your dear papa! Why, I never heard such a thing! It’s wicked, positively wicked. We’ll see to a proper dress for you at once. We have a very good dressmaker here who will fix you up elegantly. Oh, the cats, the vipers!”
Anna would have gone on much longer if Helène would have listened. But she laughingly smothered the dear lady in an embrace and begged her to forget it now as she herself had done. She would be glad to find her home here for the present and was grateful to Anna for her loving kindness.
Thus, at last, did Helène find a resting place for her tired head. Here she could be alone with her thoughts, study a little and arrive at some definite plans for the future. Perhaps, her troubles were now over and things would take a change for the better. For the winter, at least, she would accept Anna’s kind hospitality.
Soon the spring would come—ah, the spring! She would not plan so far ahead. She would leave it in God’s own merciful hands. The lines from the English poet came into her mind. She smiled happily as she murmured the hope-giving words:
Oh, Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Spring with its budding of trees and flowers and growing of green grass; with the coming of the hope-giving sun and blue skies, and all the thousand beauties that make the heart glad, then surely would come to her a new strength and a kinder life. Perhaps—perhaps—but she dared not think of that. If God so willed it spring might bring him also, and then—ah, then, let come what may. It would, indeed, be a new life!