"Yes, always," replied Fritz; "for, of course, he could not walk on one leg."
"I can hop on one leg," observed Ella from the corner into which she had been gradually retreating. "This morning, when I heard all about father, I hopped six times up and down the kitchen and never put my hand on anything."
"And can thy father never bake any more bread, nor stand any more at the door in the evening and kiss hands up to me?"
"That I do not know. He will stand, perhaps, in the bakery and look on; and then, thou knowest, he can have a chair put down in the doorway, and he can see thee from there.—O Ella, canst thou not keep still?"
For Ella had now emerged from her corner near the stove, and with the handle of the little stove-brush planted under her arm, was prancing up and down the floor with one leg drawn up behind her and the other coming down at intervals with tremendous thumps on the floor.
"Do keep still," cried Fritz again.
But Ella, who had sat all day long silent and miserable in the house opposite, was now flushed with the excitement of freedom both of limb and speech, and up and down the room she hopped and bounded with glowing cheeks and flying hair, crying out, "See how I can hop!" until at last the brush-stick slipped with a sudden jerk from under her arm, and she came crash down on the floor on her face.
"Ha, ha! that comes from pretending to have only one leg," shouted Fritz, half laughing himself at the catastrophe. But when he picked up poor Ella and found that her lip was cut and swelled, and her little fat elbow all scraped and bleeding, too, he carried her over in his arms to a chair and kissed her a hundred times. It was all, however, of no avail. Ella, it is true, made no sound whatever for a moment or two, and Violet, quite terrified, leaned forward in her chair anxiously.
But Ella was only waiting to recover her breath: her nerves had been strained to the highest pitch, poor child, and now with almost a convulsive struggle a piercing cry burst forth, loud and long, and terrifying to hear. Evelina came rushing out of the inner room, and snatching the child from Fritz's arms, without listening to explanation or remonstrance, she carried her down the stairs and quickly across the street to her mother. Fritz sprang up to follow, but looking round at Violet's pale face, he paused and hesitated.
"I will stay with thee till she comes back," he said comfortingly, and he returned and stood by her side, though his lips and hands trembled with the passion he strove to repress.