Madam Adler, too, came across in the evening. Her heart was full of anger against Evelina for having deserted her charge the day before; but when she entered the room and found Violet sitting on Evelina's knee by the stove, with her arms round the girl's neck, who was singing to her, she thought the reprimand would be ill-timed, and she determined to wait for a better opportunity.
CHAPTER XXII. A STARTLING MESSAGE.
It was not many days before the town of Edelsheim awoke to the fact that the war was not over, and that though the French emperor was a prisoner, France seemed determined to fight to the bitter end.
The gay flags which had been hung out of the windows so joyfully were now rolled up again and put aside, and the people went about their work with dejected faces, awaiting the dread tidings that their loved ones were ordered to march forward towards Paris, and fight the enemy there.
But Violet knew nothing of all this. Secure in the certainty of her father's speedy return, she sat daily in the window watching. She very seldom spoke now; it seemed to tire her. But she smiled to herself much oftener than she had hitherto done, and waved her little thin hand to Fritz, who was ever on the watch in the house opposite; and constantly, in the warm autumn evenings, when the windows of both houses were open, he called across to her and told her his news. Violet smiled and nodded her head, but she had no strength to call back again, nor even to draw up the cord of the little basket into which Fritz was constantly dropping little gifts and scraps of paper, on which were printed in large letters messages of love and comfort:—"Fritz will soon be well enough to see Violet"—"Fritz is making a boat for Violet;" and once or twice, in a very closely-folded message, were the words, "Fritz is always asking God to make Violet well."
But at last there came a message from Fritz which roused her for a time out of her lethargy, and set her heart beating wildly.
It was a beautiful autumn evening; the town was rosy red in the sunset, and all the casements of the oriel window lay wide open. Violet, who had not spoken for several hours, was lying back on her pillows half sleeping, half waking, with her eyes dreamily fixed on the hill, which was wrapped in a soft purple mist. The canary bird was picking out the loose feathers from its wings in the cage overhead; and the old jackdaw on the opposite side of the street, for a wonder was at rest, with his head tucked under his wing.