"Two hours!" interrupted Violet, with almost a cry of disappointment.
"Yes, two hours; and so much the better for thee, for now the sun is so hot it would just bake thee into a little pie. There was a child yesterday, Master Fritz said, who went to the hill and got such a headache from standing in a cornfield beside the river that last night they thought it was going to die."
"Oh," said Violet thoughtfully;—she was thinking of the story in the Bible which Fritz had told her one time long ago. "And is it well now, Evelina?"
"I do not know; I did not ask. The policeman can tell thee. He is not such a bad old fellow, after all. He is going to bring out cakes, and strawberries and cream, and a kettle, and I don't know what else, and we are to have tea under the trees. Is not that lovely?"
"Lovely! too, too lovely!" replied Violet, her eyes kindling with a speechless joy. "And perhaps, Evelina, I shall hear the nightingales singing in the woods. Mother used to walk down there with father in the evenings long ago to listen, and once she had me in her arms—father told me so; but then I was only a very small baby. And shall I see glow-worms, too, and those little mice which have wings?"
"Yes, yes, everything," replied Evelina, who was busy buttoning on a pair of very dainty boots: "we shall have a delicious evening, that is certain. And I would have thee go asleep now and think no more about it, and when thou awakest the two hours will be gone, and we shall lift thee straight away into thy carriage, and then hurrah for the hill! Why, thou wilt feel just like a bird escaped from its cage; and when once thou hast stretched thy wings and flown to the woods, I reckon we shall have pretty hard work to keep thee in the house any longer."
"My wings!" echoed Violet in a tone of such concentrated interest that Evelina looked up startled and astonished; "when shall I have wings?"
"Little goose," replied the girl, turning away her head suddenly from the sight of those pleading eyes; "how can I tell thee? Perhaps we shall cheat thee after all of thy wings, when we get thee out into the fresh air and the fields; and then what will thy father think when he comes home?"
"I do not understand what thou meanest," said Violet plaintively.
"Never mind what I mean: wings are all very well, no doubt, for birds and things that cannot walk; but fine fat arms and legs are better still. Ah, thou shouldest see thy cousins at Gützberg; they are something like children. I would not drag one of those fat things to the hill in thy carriage, not for all thou couldst give me."