It had come so suddenly too—at least to Violet it was sudden. She had not noticed the short coughs, or the quick breathing, or the flushed cheeks; only to her eyes her little mother, as she always called her, grew more lovely every day. But one night when she was asleep, and dreaming of a wooden go-cart which Fritz had promised to make for her the next day, her father came to her bedside and called to her to awake.
"Violet, my darling, thou must awake. Come with me to thy mother; she is calling for thee."
"For me," she said, rising up with sleepy eyes and tossed hair. "Where is dear mother, and why does she want me in the night?"
Her father stooped down over the bed and lifted her up in his arms very gently, for it hurt her to lift her up quickly or roughly; and without answering her he carried her through the doorway into the inner room.
"Mother, dear, why dost thou want me in the night?" asked Violet, sleepily stretching out her arms towards the bed in which her mother lay.
"Is it night?" she replied in a voice which sounded quite strange to the little girl's ears. "John, where is my darling? I cannot see her; put her here, close beside me.—There, sweetest one; lay thy head on mother's breast."
Violet placed her head on her mother's shoulder, and stretching out her little arm, threw it lovingly round her neck. "What ails sweet mother?" she said softly. "Art thou sick?"
"Ay, sick unto death. Mother has sent for her little girl to bid her good-bye. Mother must say adieu to her poor sick girlie; but father will love thee, oh, so well.—Is it not so, beloved? Thou hast always been better to her than many mothers."
"Yes, yes," he said huskily; "never fear, thou knowest that I love her."