"He deserved it," replied her mother somewhat sharply.
The little girl gave a long sigh; and pressing one of the tears which still stood in a bright drop on the front of her dress with the tip of her finger until it disappeared in the purple cashmere folds, she said softly,—
"I love Fritz. I must tell him what thou hast just told me, that though I cannot run or jump like him or Ella, some day, not very far away, when the Lord Jesus calls me, I shall have wings. Is it not true, mother?"
"Quite true," she answered with an effort, then turned quickly away towards the stove and resumed her ironing.
CHAPTER II. MOTHER'S FAREWELL.
A year had flown away since that eventful day when Fritz had somewhat roughly awakened Violet to the fact that she was a little hunchback, and that she was never to run or walk like him or Ella; and now everything connected with this little life of hers was changed. The young mother with the fair hair and the blue eyes and the warm, loving heart, had flown away before her little girl. The good Lord Jesus had called her first, and she was asleep now in the little churchyard beside the church which stood at the end of the street.
She could not shelter nor protect her little girl any more from hurtful words, nor press her to her heart to soothe the pain which they had caused her. She could not sit beside her in the window and read and talk to her till the hours flew by almost unnoticed, so that Violet often forgot that her back ached and that her legs were weary.