Then his eyes fell on her apron. Its crumpled state, and the red and green smears on it, showed the use to which it had been put, and he began to guess what had happened.
Anna hung her head.
"I was crying and I leaned against a tree. Oh, dear, it was a clean apron! Aunt will be vexed."
Her father sighed, but he pitied her confusion.
"Why did you cry, my child?" he said, half-tenderly, half in rebuke. "Aunt Christina means well, though she speaks abruptly."
He only provoked fresh tears, but Anna tried so hard to keep them back that she was soon calm again.
"I am not vexed with Aunt Christina for scolding me," she said; "I deserved it; I am sorry for myself."
"Well, well," he said cheerfully, "we cannot expect old heads on young shoulders." His honest, sunburned face was slightly troubled as he looked at her. "You will have to brush up a bit, you know, when Christina goes to Zurich. You are going to be left in charge of the house for a week or so."
Anna pressed her hands nervously together. She felt that the house would suffer greatly under her guidance; but then, she should have her father all to herself in her aunt's absence, and she should be freed from those scathing rebukes which made her feel all the more clumsy and helpless when they were uttered in her father's presence.
George Fasch, however, had of late become very much aware of his daughter's awkwardness, and secretly he was troubled by the prospect of her aunt's absence. He was a kind man and an affectionate father, but he objected to Gretchen's unaided cookery, and he had therefore resolved to transact some long-deferred business in Zurich during his sister's stay there. This would lessen the number of his badly-cooked dinners at home.