"Certainly; what is it?"
"It is so hard to print such a long word;" and she pointed with a nervous hesitation to the pink letters on the cake.
Her aunt saw it all now—the little scrap of paper covered with almost illegible letters, and the shy action of the child to hide the effort from her eyes.
"Couldst not thou hold my hand on the pencil and show me how?" she asked almost piteously. "Violet prints so badly."
"Of course I can. Wait but one moment until I take off my hat and cloak, and we will do it beautifully together. It is not, after all, so badly done," she added comfortingly as she took up the paper and examined it. "I can read the 'Auf' quite plainly, and the other letters can be easily improved."
In a little time the words were printed quite distinctly—"Auf wiedersehen" (To meet again). Violet drew a deep breath as they were finished, and lay back on her pillows; but after a time she roused herself up again and said,—
"Still one thing more, Aunt Lizzie. Violet wants to print her own name on the paper, all by herself. She must do it quite by herself alone; but thou canst print it first, and then Violet can do it afterwards ever so like."
Aunt Lizzie saw at once what the child wanted, and so one letter at a time was drawn by her on a separate piece of paper, and Violet copied it painfully, until at last, with many shaky strokes and trembling uplines and places where there were no lines visible at all, the name "Violet" was printed in, crookedly enough, beneath the farewell words of love and hope.
"'To meet again'—those are lovely words, Aunt Lizzie, are they not?" and Violet smiled, for her task of love was finished.
Then with hands that trembled painfully she fastened the crumpled paper to the bunch of violets lying on the bed, and looked up at her aunt.