"I ordered you to go," cried the father. "When a lady like the Frau Staatsräthin does you the honour to invite you, you are to accept her invitation gratefully. I will not have it said that I make a Cinderella of my daughter!"
Little Ernestine made no reply, but looked at the housekeeper with such an expression in her large, sunken eyes, that the woman was transported with rage; it seemed scarcely possible that so much contempt and hate should find place in the bosom of a child. The housekeeper clasped her hands. "No, you bad, naughty child! You ought to see how she is looking at me now, Herr von Hartwich!"
With these words she tried again to throw the dress over Ernestine's head; but the girl tore it away, threw it on the ground and trampled upon it, crying in a transport of rage, interrupted by bursts of tears, "I will not put it on, and I will not go among strangers! I will not be treated so! You are a bad, wicked woman! I will not mind you!"
"Oh, goodness gracious! was ever such a naughty child seen!" exclaimed the housekeeper, looking with a secret sensation of fear at the little fury who stood before her with dishevelled hair and heaving chest.
"When are you going to stop that noise out there?" roared the father. "Must I, wretched man that I am, hear nothing, all day long, but children's and servants' squabbles? Ernestine, come in here to me!"
At this command, the little girl began to tremble violently; she knew what was in store for her, and moved slowly towards the door. "Are you coming?" called the invalid.
Ernestine entered the room, and stood as far as possible from the bed where he was lying. "Now, come here!" he cried, beckoning her towards him with his right hand,--his left was crippled,--and continuing, as Ernestine hesitated: "You good-for-nothing, obstinate child! you have never caused a throb of pleasure to any one since you came into the world; not even to your mother, for your birth cost her her life. In you God has heaped upon me all the sorrows but none of the joys that a son might afford his father; you have the waywardness and self-will of a boy, with the frail, puny body of a girl! What is to be done with such a wretched creature, that can do nothing but scream and cry?"
At these words the child burst into a fresh flood of tears, and was hurrying out, when she was recalled by a thundering "Stop! you have not had your punishment yet!"
Ernestine knew then what was coming, and begged hard. "Do not strike me, father! Oh, do not strike me again!" But her entreaties were of no avail.
With lips tightly compressed, and her little hands convulsively clasped together, she approached the bed. The sick man raised his broad hard hand, and a heavy blow fell upon the transparent cheek of the child, who staggered and fell on the floor. "Now will you obey, or have you not had enough yet?" the father asked.