And splendid he did look this afternoon in his new uniform—a giant in height, in breadth, in strength, with a fair open face, which could look stern enough at times, but now there was no sternness about it, only a searching eagerness to see if he might win one smile from his darling in the bed yonder.
John had to take his helmet off to enter at the doorway. And now, as he stood by his little girl's bed, turning himself round with an assumed pride for her admiration, he looked, as he was, one of the very flower of the German army, ready to die for his king and fatherland; with a heart of steel to face the foe, and a heart of wax to be moulded by those tiny burning fingers in the bed, into whatever shape or form she chose.
"Has the king seen thee, father?" she asked with a sob and a smile.
"No, my child."
"Ah, he will be delighted. Thou art the finest soldier I ever saw."
"Thou thinkest so, my treasure?"
"Yes, yes; the best soldier in all the army"—she stretched out her arms lovingly, yearningly—"and the best, the very best, the dearest father in all the world."
John put down his helmet on the bed; his spurs clattered, his sword clanked, as he stooped over it; but she heard nothing—only the whisper in her ear: "Violet, my heart's treasure, how can I go away and leave thee?"
Later on in the evening, when he had gone out to make some final arrangements, and to buy some last comforts for his little girl, and she had relapsed into her former state of speechless grief, there came a tap at the door of her room, and a voice, which seemed to thrill through every fibre of her frame, cried softly,—