"They love me?" Violet smiled again, an inquiring, happy smile, and her little white face mantled with modest blushes. "So many friends," she said softly; then added almost in a whisper, "and also, Aunt Lizzie, the Lord Jesus; he is my friend too, is he not?"
"He is indeed thy best friend; so good a friend, that no matter who else goes away and leaves little Violet, he is always beside her; and when she is very tired, and her back aches, and her heart is sad, then she has only to think how close he is beside her, and rest her little tired head just so against his breast." And as Aunt Lizzie spoke she drew Violet close beside her, and covered her upturned face with loving kisses.
Evelina was seated again in the window as Aunt Lizzie turned round from the bed. Her fingers were flying swiftly, the steel needles clattered and chinked, but there was a moisture in her usually bright eyes, which her mistress understood and was glad to see.
Two days afterwards Aunt Lizzie returned to Gützberg, leaving Evelina in sole charge of Violet. She had almost grown accustomed to her now. At first it was a sore trial to her that Evelina slept in the room which used to be her mother's. When the door of it opened and shut, her heart gave sudden leaps and starts, which made her sick and wretched. When she saw Evelina's hat hanging on the same nail where her mother's used to be, she turned her eyes away quickly; but even to this she soon grew accustomed, and said to herself, with a long, wishful sigh, "When father comes back all will be like home again."
Fritz, too, became much more friendly with Evelina as the days wore on. She had quite a fund of fairy tales and children's stories, which she used to tell them in the evenings. It was after supper was finished that they used to gather round her in the window; and Violet's eyes grew and darkened and deepened in the summer twilight as she listened, inthralled, to the stories of forest gnomes and elves that hid themselves beneath the fragrant ferns and mosses of the woods.
Evelina could sing, too. She had the sweetest voice imaginable, and she knew heaps of ballads; and when the song was an exciting one, she would act it with quick gestures and flashing eyes; or when it was sad, real tears sprung to them with an almost unnatural swiftness.
Violet listened and pondered and watched every movement of the face before her; and yet, with an unconscious distrust, still kept the whole freedom of her loving heart uplifted in the balance.
"Fritz," she said one evening suddenly, as he and she sat alone in the deep window-seat, "Fritz, tell me this one thing: dost thou love Evelina?"
"I like her," replied Fritz quickly.
"I like her too, she is ever so kind to me, and she never says a cross word, like old Kate; but I like Kate better."