CHAPTER IX. AUNT LIZZIE'S VISIT.
The next day an aunt of Violet's arrived from a distant town. She was a sister of John's wife and a wife herself, very young and very fair, and with a wonderful likeness to the poor dead mother. Her husband, who was many years older than herself, was amongst the militia, and had not yet been called out; and at the cry from John's broken heart she came at once, leaving her own little ones behind her, to remain a few days with Violet, until the bitterness of the parting was over.
On this day the little girl had made no effort to leave her bed; all the long morning she had remained with her head buried in the pillows, and with the sheet drawn over her head, deaf to all comfort or words of sympathy. For who could comfort her when the appalling fact remained unchanged that her father was going to leave her, to go to the war, and she would be left alone?
In vain Fritz had stood by her bed and called to her. He had brought her a box of the most delicious sweetmeats, a farewell present from the confectioner; for poor Madame Bellard, like all the rest of the French residents in Edelsheim, had had to break up her home since the war was declared, and prepare to leave Germany at once; and now, as her shop was being closed, the children of the neighbourhood were profiting by her good-nature. To Violet she had sent a special gift of great beauty—a box of frosted silver, and all within were sweetmeats of various colours, pale pink and green and white, which shone glitteringly, as if they had been sprinkled over with diamond dust.
But no words of Fritz, nor descriptions of the treasure he held in his hand, could induce Violet to look up. Her head was buried in her pillows, and no sound but smothered sobbings reached his ears. Once a little thin hand was stretched out for a moment through the sheets, and grasped his gratefully, and there was an effort to say something, but Fritz did not understand it; and having left the sweetmeat-box on the table beside her bed, he moved away dejectedly, followed by Ella, who, in endeavouring to walk out on her tip-toes, had nearly fallen down on her face in the doorway.
Once in the afternoon Violet started up, and lifting herself painfully from the pillows, flung the clothes from off her face. She had heard a step on the stairs, and now she heard her father's voice calling to her. He was standing in the doorway as she looked up, and all the bright colour rushed to her pale face, and an exclamation of admiration and surprise burst quite unconsciously from her lips.
"Father, is it thou? Oh, how splendid!"