“It’s for you, Tante Edith,” she said, holding it as though she loved it. “It’s from my mother–” and the tears came into her eyes as she said the word. Mrs. Eldred and Hannah exchanged glances of understanding, and Hannah caught up the water pitcher.
“I’ll get this full of warm water for you,” she said briskly, “and you must hurry and get ready 122 to come down stairs, for we are going to have Kaffee just as you do in Berlin. Won’t that be fun?”
“Mamma can comfort her,” she thought to herself, as she emptied the pitcher which Sarah had filled a few minutes before, and refilled it with water a shade cooler. “I’ll leave them alone a few minutes and go down and see about the coffee. I know she will like those little currant cakes of Sarah’s.”
Frieda, however, seemed little inclined to ask consolation from Mrs. Eldred. She stood helplessly looking into her trunk, and Mrs. Eldred, feeling suddenly shy, looked helplessly at her. The clouded, silent face was so different from Hannah’s.
“Aren’t you rather warm, dear, with that heavy gown on? Let’s find something thinner to slip on before we go down stairs.”
Frieda stooped, rummaged a minute, and then produced a dress of pink cotton, fussily trimmed with lace and ribbons. “This is thinner,” she said, stonily.
“That will do though it is rather fine for home dinner,” said Mrs. Eldred gently. “But put it on, if you will, dear. I’ll tell that forgetful Hannah to bring your water at once. O, I see, she left it outside the door. There! If you want any help, just call me. I’ll go into my own room across the hall and read your mother’s letter.” She wanted to kiss the child, but Frieda’s manner forbade it.
123The pink frock had alarmed Mrs. Eldred. “Clothes make such a difference to girls,” she thought in distress. “How can I help her? She will be proud and shy, and sure to think I am criticising her mother’s taste. Dear Marie!” Whereupon she wisely suspended her puzzling and read the letter.
“I am sending Frieda with as few new clothes as possible, my dear Edith, relying upon your taste and kindness to fit her out with what she needs. I remember how differently you dressed when you came to Heidelberg, and how odd Hannah’s clothes looked to Frieda’s friends, and I want Frieda to start without a handicap. American girls are less accustomed to seeing foreigners than German girls are, and a little difference in the way of dressing might make a great difference in happiness. I am afraid my Frieda will be peculiar in many ways that cannot be remedied, so once more I ask you, will you choose for her a simple outfit such as Hannah herself would approve, and make me more than ever your grateful debtor?”
Mrs. Eldred sighed with relief. The solution of one difficulty in sight, she felt braver about all others. It was a theory of hers that food and clothes were more important to happiness than most of the subtleties poets and philosophers write about. “Homesickness is very often hunger, and Weltschmerz can 124 frequently be cured by a becoming frock, or brought on by an ill-fitting one,” she meditated, as she fastened the pink and lace for Frieda.