Madam Adler had made no reply to Evelina's reproaches, for her own heart was too full of pain, to see the great change which had lately come over the little wan face; and when she saw the sudden lustre which burned in Violet's eyes at the first sight of Ella with the white dress and the shining wings, and then listened to the passionate sobbing which followed, she had gone back to her own house overwhelmed with grief at the result of her visit, and she longed for the day of the procession to be over, that the subject might pass away from Violet's mind, and Ella's wings be folded up and put away.
Ella, upstairs in her room, was awake also this morning at an unusually early hour. She could not rest, with the joyous expectation of being an angel and walking in the great procession; and ever so many times she had risen and gone over and touched with her soft, fat fingers the wings so beautifully tipped with silver and shining with stars, and which lay upon the table in the middle of the room: but every time she looked at them a sorrowful remembrance came over her of Violet's face and her bitter tears; and at last the little girl walked back to her bedside, and kneeling down said softly,—
"Oh, thou good Lord Jesus, be very kind to poor Violet in the house opposite, and give her wings too, like Ella!"
She looked up very steadily at the ceiling as she said these words. Her wide-open eyes seemed to see far up above the roof and the chimneys and the storks. The soft yellow hair was straggling out in long loops and curls from under her linen night-cap, her elbows rested on the bed, and her dimpled fingers were clasped. Was she, after all, so unlike an angel, this "fat Miss Ella," at whose appearance Evelina could not restrain her laughter?
When Ella had finished her little prayer, and was just saying "Amen" in a rather loud voice, the door opened and Fritz walked in.
"What art thou doing, Ella?" he said rather curiously. "Out of bed already, at this early hour, and saying thy prayers! Dost thou think thou art an angel already?"
Ella blushed crimson as she stood up, and she shuffled her little pink feet over each other uneasily on the carpet.
"It was only about Violet," she said nervously, and her eyes travelled back again to the wings shining so softly on the dark oil-cloth cover of the table.
"So thou hast been thinking of her too," said Fritz, drawing a deep breath. "I have thought of nothing else all night, and that is why I too am up so early, and dressed, as thou seest, for going out."
Ella had noticed that Fritz had his cap in his hand, and she had wondered at it.