It was only for a short time that Elizabeth confined her anger to black looks. Before she had been in the cottage two months, her sharp voice would ring its angry changes upon the Two Good-for-Nothings, as she now loudly called them, and both the grandfather and little Gretchen went about silent and trembling, like two culprits who feared detection and punishment.
She would have them to go to bed before Karl returned in the evening, for she was very careful to conceal her unkind treatment of them from him. He was obliged to go very early in the morning to his work, and saw but little of them, and as the cottage looked clean and cheerful when he returned, he thought they were well cared for.
Sometimes, for whole days the old grandfather and the little one would wander on the banks of the beautiful Rhine River, and in her sweet infantile voice she would rival the songs of the birds.
So wonderful a development of voice in the child was a marvel to all who heard her, and the fond old man's heart swelled with pride as the neighbors gathered round to hear her sing. Every one loved them but the mistress, and they were always sure of a welcome at the noon-day meal from any of the neighbors. The silver-haired old man was "grandfather" to them all, and the little child "mein schonest liebes."
The mistress did not object to their long strolls from home. "The Good-for-Nothings" were only in the way; it did her good to have them out of her sight a few minutes; while they, poor innocents, escaped many a rough scolding, and the little child many a blow from the hard hand of the mistress.
How they enjoyed those days together.
As Gretchen grew older, and the grandfather more feeble, she would lead him by the hand and run to the neighbor's for a coal to light his pipe, saying: "The dear grandfather must smoke." Then they would sit down on the green bank, and with the smoke-wreaths curling above his head the grandfather would tell old legends and fairy tales to half the children in the village, and "little Golden Hair," as the children called her, would sing to them.
One day, when Gretchen was about five years old, they returned from their accustomed stroll to find a new inmate at the cottage, and Karl called them to look at the little sister baby. The old grandfather looked sad, for he could not love the mistress's child as he did Chimlein's, and he feared it would bring yet greater trouble to his little Gretchen. But the unsuspecting child opened her large violet eyes full of wonder and delight, thinking, as all little girls do, there is nothing in the world so pretty as a baby.
But that baby was her destiny.
No more days by the dear Rhine River. No more songs with the village children, or fairy tales told under the waving trees with the fresh air blowing round them. But the little, golden-haired child became a fixture by the cradle. The baby would not go to sleep unless soothed by Gretchen's voice, which now was oftener full of subdued pathos than childish joyousness.