Gritli's Children Part 24

"I knew she was an angel from heaven; and we could not expect her to stay long with us. Now she is going back again where she belongs."

The children at Rosemount were allowed to come for a few minutes at a time into Elsli's room. They were charged to bring only cheerful faces, and not to trouble her with their grief. They brought her flowers from the garden, and sometimes they read to her from the books she loved.

Fani especially was very tender and devoted, and Elsli took great satisfaction in having him with her.

Every interview was precious, since the time for them was probably so short.

But Elsli did not die. The complete repose of the sick-room, and the devoted care she received, but perhaps more than all that the new happiness that had come into her heart in Mrs. Stanhope's awakened affection and her own response to it, and the fresh hopes which sprang from seeing how large a place she held in the lives of those about her, and the happy prospect of being useful and valuable without need of concealment or anxiety,--all these things helped in her recovery; and when, in a few weeks, she again came down stairs and out into the sunny garden, it was with new eyes that she looked upon life and its duties and opportunities, and she thanked G.o.d that he had permitted her to stay upon his beautiful earth, and help his children here. For she saw that the earth is the Lord's as well as the heavens, and while she still looked forward to the happy life of Paradise with hope and confidence, she no longer undervalued the joys and privileges which surrounded her here.

As soon as Elsli was fairly convalescent, the doctor's children went home. Their parents could spare them no longer. Mrs. Stanhope bade them good-bye with the a.s.surance that she should depend on having another visit from them next year, so that it was plain that she felt no serious displeasure with them. They were grateful for her forgiveness, and fervently resolved that next year she should have nothing to forgive.

The three travellers went rapidly on towards their own dear home. At the last station their father's carriage was waiting for them. A shout of joy hailed them. It was Rikli. She had been allowed to come to meet them. It seemed that night as if they would never be tired enough to go to bed, they were so excited with joy at seeing father and mother and aunty, and at feeling themselves at home again. Questions and answers were all poured out together, interrupted by frequent exclamations of affection and of joy at being all together once more. There seemed no chance of quiet or rest that night.

But at last the evening came to an end. The active trio were in bed and asleep, and the happy mother went softly from one bedside to another, and breathed a silent thanksgiving over each sleeping child, that they had all been preserved from harm and brought safely back to her arms.

Mrs. Stanhope's summer had been full of excitement of various kinds, such as she had never in her whole life experienced before. It had been rather a trying thing to her to have her very methodical and regular life so disturbed, and she had not always known how to take with equanimity the alarms and inconveniences that her generous invitation to the doctor's children had brought upon her. But she had been interested in the children, and it had been a good thing for her to become accustomed to the interruption of the too rigorous routine in which she had been living. Elsli's illness had been a deep and painful experience, but it had produced a blessed change in the whole tone of her life and spirit. Her new-born love for the little girl had broken up the sealed fountains of her heart, and she felt again the bliss of a mother's love ardently returned by a child. A warmer glow was infused too into her feeling for Fani, to whom she had been attracted at first by his resemblance to her Philo. Time had softened her sorrow for the loss of her boy, so that this resemblance endeared Fani to her, while in Elsli's case, a similar likeness to Nora had only made it the more difficult to receive one who was brought to her to take Nora's place, while she was still stunned with the grief of the recent parting.

Her first thought now was for Elsli. The doctor said that the child must spend the next winter in a warmer climate, and recommended a removal to the south of France or to Italy before the coming of cold weather.

"And meantime," he said, "you must put a stop to all this long sitting on the stone seat under those heavy lindens down by the water, and to pacing up and down that damp little path that leads to the willows, and to spending hours in that wretched hut by the bog, that isn't fit for any one to live in. The river is very beautiful, but it's better to be looked at from a distance above. Dry air and sunshine are what our little girl needs. She couldn't do anything worse for mind or body than to sit and meditate in that cold, damp, lonely place."

Mrs. Stanhope's eyes were opened, and she resolved to act on the doctor's suggestion, not only with regard to Elsli, but also to the fisherman's family. She took measures directly for building a small house on her own land, in a dry situation, but not far from the river, so that he could continue his avocation as a fisherman, while she also gave him steady and profitable employment as a laborer on her estate.

Elsli was very happy watching the progress of the new house and fitting it up for its inmates, and she had the pleasure of seeing them comfortably established there before she went south for the winter.

Meantime Mrs. Stanhope, after much deliberation, and with considerable reluctance, for she was not accustomed to change a resolution once made, had come to a decision with regard to Fani's future, quite at variance with her former plans, which had been to bring him up with a knowledge of business, with a view to his becoming steward of her estates.

One evening she was sitting with the two children in the parlor after supper; for they no longer went out on the terrace at this hour, since the days were growing shorter and Elsli must not be out after sundown.

The children were chatting gayly, on various subjects, when Mrs.

Stanhope, who had been reading, laid down her book, and said:--

"Come and sit by me, Fani; let us have a little talk together. That unfortunate expedition of yours on the river, and what you said when you told me about it, seemed to show that your heart was fully set on becoming an artist. Is it so still? or was it only a pa.s.sing fancy? Are you sure that you have thought long enough about it to be certain of yourself?"

Fani grew crimson. He hesitated an instant, and then said:--

"Yes; I have thought about it and wished for it a long, long time; and the more I draw, the more I care for it. But I am willing to think no more about it; and I will do whatever you wish, to the very best of my ability."

"I have been talking to your teacher," continued Mrs. Stanhope, "and he says, if your industry and perseverance are as great as your talent, you will be a successful artist. And as you care so much about it, I am sure you will be persevering. So I have decided to take you with us to Florence this winter, where you will have good instruction in drawing, and also the benefit of the galleries. You will go on with your studies too, for I want you to be a well educated man as well as an artist, and you are too young yet to give up school-work. If you do well, and at the end of a year or two still persevere in your desire to become a painter, you shall go to an art-school, at Dusseldorf or somewhere else, and take a course of several years. There you will find out just how much you can do, and after that we will decide what is best for our young artist."

Fani sprang to his feet and stood speechless before his kind benefactress. When he tried to speak, tears came instead of the words he meant to utter.

Mrs. Stanhope saw his emotion with far more satisfaction than if he had overwhelmed her with thanks.

"Now," she said to herself, "he is certainly in earnest."

"Meanwhile," she continued aloud, "we shall often be with you, Elsli and I, sometimes at home, or wherever it is best for us to spend the winters. In summer we shall be all together here. You are my own children now; and I shall do for you just as I should have done for my Philo and Nora if they had stayed with me."

Tears stood in Mrs. Stanhope's eyes, but she smiled too, as she held out her arms to the children, and drew them, radiant with joy and grat.i.tude, into a mother's embrace.

There were great rejoicings among their friends in Buchberg over the news that Mrs. Stanhope had adopted the two children, and that Fani was to become an art-student. Oscar and Fred, and still more the triumphant Emma, could already see with prophetic eyes the announcement of the great exhibition to be held in the neighboring city, of the wonderful landscapes of that "celebrated painter, Fani von Buchberg!"

Heiri's family grew better off every year with the help that came from the absent children and their new mother, and Elsli was happy in the thought that her father's hardest days were over, and that her own good-fortune had brought good to him also.

Oscar and the Fink boys kept up an uninterrupted correspondence. They were determined that when they were grown up to manhood they would found a Swiss brotherhood which should astonish the world.

Feklitus got back his shirts and his new clothes and his trunks safe from the clutches of the waiters at the Crown Prince. But he never spoke of his journey to the Rhine, no matter how much his companions might ply him with questions. If, in school, his geography lesson was upon the Rhine country, he turned a deaf ear, for he absolutely declined to learn anything about a place where innocent persons are treated with such indignity as they meet with there.

Mrs. Stein and her sister still had their hands and their hearts full with the care of the boys and girls who were at once their anxiety and their delight; but they still had time and thought to give to the interests of others, and they never failed to rejoice over the improvement and the happiness of Gritli's children.

[Ill.u.s.tration]