"Is Violet awake? May Aunt Lizzie come in?"
Violet once more flung down the clothes and made a violent effort to rise up quickly. Her cheeks flamed to a carmine red, her eyes glowed in the twilight, and there was something in their expression which made her aunt pause on the threshold and place her hand suddenly upon her heart.
"Poor little girlie! all alone?" she said, in the same sweet, low voice. "Aunt Lizzie has come at a good time to sit and comfort thee."
Violet had not seen her Aunt Lizzie for two long years; but now, at this crisis of her young life, when her heart was hungering for a face which she could never see again, and her spirit was crying out for her lost mother to comfort her, Aunt Lizzie had come in at the door, with the same gentle voice, the same sweet blue eyes and waving golden hair, and had laid just such a soft cheek against her own. All Violet's reserve gave way at once, and she turned with a sudden movement of overpowering relief, and flung her arms around Aunt Lizzie's neck.
"Aunt Lizzie! Aunt Lizzie! dost thou know, hast thou heard?—my father—;" here she turned her head in upon her aunt's breast; she could not finish the sentence—only a storm of sobs completed it.
"Yes, yes; I know it all. Thy father has to go away to the war. It is terrible. I was thinking of thee all the way in the train, and of all the other poor little children in Edelsheim who must say 'Good-bye' to-morrow to their fathers."
"But, Aunt Lizzie, Violet will be so lonely, so quite alone."
"Yes; thy father is so wonderfully good, and so kind, thou wilt miss him more than most children: I know that well."
"There will be no one to sit with Violet all day, no one to kiss Violet at night, no one to hear Violet say her prayers, no one to talk about mother—only Kate, and Kate never knows what Violet says."