Good, happy Fräulein! Not a thoughtful word or a kind act from these to you strangers in a strange land, but you have treasured in your homesick heart, and from the Vater Land you bring to them all to-day your grateful recognition of it all!
Perhaps the happiest of them was the lame Nellie, who, yet weak and pale from her sickness, had with the Fräulein’s consent brought to the Christmas-tree little pictures which she had painted in her convalescence, as gifts to them all. She held tight to Marion’s hand. In some way, she could not have told you how, she seemed to herself to have owed to this dear friend the ability to have painted them. It was a little cross she gave Marion, but she had hung on it a wreath of lovely rosebuds, meaning, through them, to convey to Marion how her love had made the cross of her suffering beautiful.
As the vacation had commenced on the twenty-third of December, and school did not begin again until the fifth of January, there was quite a time remaining after the excitement of Christmas had passed.
The more scholarly and industrious of the girls remaining at the academy at once applied themselves to making up whatever deficiencies had occurred in their studies. 195
Marion found plenty to do, not only for herself, but also for Nellie, whose lessons had necessarily run behind during her illness.
The Fräulein found them together over their books much oftener than she thought was for their good. Having been thoroughly educated in the German methods of teaching, she was a firm believer in vacation benefits, also in muscular training, which she considered quite as essential for girls as for boys. In her imperfect English, and also by personal illustration, she had tried, ever since her connection with this school, to awaken the teachers, Miss Ashton in particular, to a greater sense of its importance. To be sure, there was a gymnasium in the building, and a regular teacher, who faithfully put her pupils through the exercises commonly allowed to girls. But these seemed to the Fräulein to be only a beginning of what might be done; so, now, finding herself for a time in sole authority in the school, she at once, as soon as Christmas was over, began to put her girls through what she considered so essential to their health.
She made her first attempt upon Marion and Nellie. Finding them both bent nearly double over their books, Nellie very pale, with dark rings under her eyes, and Marion with flushed cheeks and too bright eyes, she at once routed them from their books, made them stand up before her, and said,—
“Now, do”—and her English word failing her, she drew a long breath from the bottom of her chest, and motioned to them to imitate her. 196
Marion, never having attempted anything of the kind before, did so partially, and Nellie could only produce something that sounded like a gurgle in her small throat.
The Fräulein shook her head impatiently, and repeated the process over and over again, Marion gaining a little every time, but Nellie soon discouraged and tired.