Teresa heard of this, and ever afterwards treated Fanny much more tenderly.
One day, while sitting at her work, the girl sighed heavily. Teresa knew at once that she was thinking of her relatives.
"Why do you sigh?" she asked.
"Poor Matilda!" said the girl; and she spoke with quite genuine emotion, for she really did pity her sister who rode in a carriage and wore Brabant lace, while she herself was so happy at home over her sewing.
Teresa made no reply, but, full of emotion, she clasped the child to her breast. God had at last rewarded her for all the labours and anxieties of the last three years, for Fanny was now saved, and doubtless reserved for a happier future.
And, indeed, poverty in itself is not such a very great calamity, after all. Those who have a close acquaintance with it will tell you that it possesses joys of its own which are not to be bought with heaps of gold pieces. Besides, Teresa was not absolutely destitute. She received five hundred florins a year from an insurance office for life, with one half of which she not only supported the pair of them comfortably, but even left a margin for a little recreation. The other half she carefully put by, that Fanny might have something when she herself was gone. And the girl made a little money as well; she earned something by her needlework. Oh, ye men and women who swim in luxury, you do not know what delight, what rapture it is when a young man or woman receives the reward of his honest labour for the first time; you know nothing of the proud consciousness of being self-sufficient, of being able to live without the compassion, without the assistance, of other people!
And Fanny's work was very well paid, too!
In the house where they lived there was an Hungarian cabinet-maker, who owned several houses in Pressburg, John Boltay by name. This rich artisan, long, long ago, when he had only just served his apprenticeship, was tenderly disposed towards Teresa, and offered her his hand. But Teresa's relatives would not give him the girl, although she loved him; their family belonged to the official class, and looked down upon a mere workman. So Boltay went away and married some one else, and the marriage turned out unhappy and childless; and by the time his wife died both he and Teresa had grown old. Teresa had never married at all. For forty years she had been growing old and grey, but she had never forgotten her first love. In the mean time her family had gone down in the world, and she had
been obliged to live in a house in the suburbs, where she had remained for five-and-twenty years. Boltay meanwhile had become a rich man, and had purchased the house in which Teresa lived, and this gave him an opportunity of doing little kindnesses to Teresa, which she could not very well refuse. Thus, he turned the yard into a garden, gave the noisier of his tenants notice to quit, and charged her a purely nominal rent. And yet, for all that, they never exchanged a word together. Boltay himself lived at the opposite end of the town, over his shop; but he knew very well, all the same, what was going on at Teresa's. He knew, too, that she had adopted Fanny, and about this time he frequently sent over his head journeyman (a worthy, honest young fellow, and his favourite, whom he meant to make his heir, so people said, for he had no relatives) to purchase Fanny's handiwork, for which he paid very handsomely. He would not have dared to offer Teresa any direct assistance; but Teresa, for the girl's sake, felt bound to accept what he offered in this way.