“She is light. Here, carry her up and put her to bed. Don’t waken her if you can help it, and go to her once or twice in the night to see that she sleeps, for she is not well.”
Then he added, as an abrupt explanation,—
“She will occupy that room always. This is to be her home, and I want you to see that she has every thing necessary.”
“Yes, sir.”
If the old servant was surprised at the announcement, she made no remark. She took her up, arranged every thing for the night, and the child never awakened.
It was not an unpleasant expression that spread itself upon the face of the woman as she stooped over the bed, and laid with a careful hand every fold about the sleeper. With noiseless feet she came again and again to look once more at the unconscious form that seemed to possess for her a singular attraction. Taking up the lamp, she turned to go into her own (the adjoining) room, but, with an abrupt start, she checked herself midway in the action, held the light suspended, and stood with every muscle arrested, as if some unexpected sound had fallen suddenly on her ears. Then she bent her head for a moment over the sleeper, glanced quickly about the room, and hurriedly crossed to the hall.
She ran down the flight of stairs, looked first into the piano-room, then into the parlor opposite. Both places were deserted, and the instruments closed. The front door was bolted, and the master had evidently retired. She went back to the guest-chamber. The child still slept, and Margery held every nerve in suspense, but there was not the least sound. She stepped to the window, pushed up the sash, then leaned out and listened. The night was perfectly calm. What gentle breeze there had been two hours before had died away and left a profound silence unbroken even by the chirp of an insect. She closed the shutter, went back to the bedside again for an instant; then, saying quietly to herself, “It must have been mere fancy,” passed out to her own room, and left the door partially open between the two apartments.
II.
So the little Alice had found a home. All the people in Pickaway expressed their utter surprise at this unexpected generosity of the penurious music-master. He certainly was about the last person in the town from whom such an act might have been anticipated. Indeed, it was little short of an enigma to the place. But their astonishment knew no bounds when, within a few days after he had taken the little girl, he quietly dismissed all his pupils, and steadily refused to give any more lessons to a single soul. Nothing could prevail upon him, no entreaties whatever could persuade him, and he could never be induced to offer the least explanation.
Some of the wealthier ones, unwilling to give him up, had voluntarily proposed to pay double the former price, but even money, which all the village had thought the god of his life, failed to move him from his determination. He was inexorable. Every body wondered what might be the reason. No person could discover any apparent cause why he should so suddenly give up teaching. They inquired about his health. It was very good, he said. Did he expect to leave home? No. He would continue to play the church-organ? Yes, oh, yes; he had no intention of stopping that. So they conjectured until tired of the task, while Franz Erckman paid no attention.