So there was no complaint of dull days during the rainy season. Jenny's presence lent the evenings a new charm. No one was in a hurry for bed now. Mme. Zermatt and Jenny busied themselves with needlework. Sometimes the young girl was asked to sing, for she possessed a charming voice. She learned the songs of Switzerland, those mountain melodies which will never grow old, and it was enchanting to hear them from her lips. Music was varied by reading aloud, when Ernest drew upon the best works in the library, and it seemed that time for bed always came too soon.
In this domestic atmosphere M. Zermatt, his wife, and his children, were as happy as mortal man can be. Yet they could not entirely forget their fears for the future, the improbability of rescue coming from outside, or their old homeland. Jenny, too—must not her heart have been rent sometimes when her thoughts turned to her father? Nothing had ever been heard of the ship that was taking her home, the Dorcas, and was it not the obvious conclusion that she had foundered with all hands?
The unlooked-for event which altered their situation so profoundly has already been described.
CHAPTER VI
PLANNING AND WORKING
During the first few days following the departure of the Unicorn deep depression reigned at Rock Castle. M. and Mme. Zermatt were inconsolable at having let two of their children go, although they realised the necessity of doing so.
But it is vain to ask of a parent's heart more than it is able to give. Fritz, that gallant young fellow, was gone, Fritz, the stout right arm of his family, in whose eyes he represented the future. Gone, too, was Frank, following in the footsteps of his eldest brother.
Ernest and Jack were left, it is true. Ernest had never lost his taste for study and, thanks to his reading, his education was as solid as it was practical. Jack shared Fritz's love of hunting and fishing and riding and sailing, and, keenly eager to wrest her last secrets from New Switzerland, he would take his brother's place in daring explorations.
And lastly, she, too, was gone, the charming and beloved Jenny, whose absence Betsy regretted as much as that of a dear daughter. It was heart-breaking to see their places in the rooms of Rock Castle, their seats at table and in the hall where all assembled in the evenings, empty.