Читать книгу Only a Girl: or, A Physician for the Soul - Wilhelmine von Hillern - Страница 7

Ernestine looked on at this caress with amazement, and hot tears rose to her eyes. No one had ever been so kind to her. What happiness it must be to be so embraced and kissed! But it could never happen to her. Why not? Why did no one love her? Angelika, too, was only a girl: why was she not blamed for it? But she was so lovely, so beautiful; who could help loving her? Then her heart gave a throb as though it had been stabbed with a knife. "So beautiful," she repeated: "that is why every one pets and fondles her. It is not only that I am a girl; I am an ugly girl,--that is why no one loves me."

"Come," said Angelika. "Why do you look so? Come to the others." She led her to the fountain, around which the little company had gathered meanwhile. The children were amusing themselves with throwing stones at the ball of glass which the water tossed up and down. No girl or boy could hit it; the ball could only be struck while it was dancing on the top of the spray, and always fell before it was reached. The children laughed merrily at each other, and even the parents and grown people were interested and drew near. Ernestine looked on after her usual brooding fashion. She soon divined where the mistake lay. The stone was longer in reaching its aim than the ball lingered in the air. She quickly concluded that if a stone were aimed at the top of the fountain while the ball was still below, the latter in ascending would strike the stone. Hilsborn, the boy fourteen years old, had just declared that he could not understand why they could not strike it. Ambition took possession of her,--if she was ugly, she would show them that she was clever,--if she was only a girl, she would show them that she had force and skill. Involuntarily she looked across to the old Geheimrath, to ascertain if he saw her, and, as this seemed to be the case, she stooped down and hastily picked up a larger stone than the others, to insure success,--took the attitude which she had often observed in the village boys, and, with her feet planted firmly wide apart, swung her arm round three times to take sure aim, and hurled the stone with all her force towards the point in the air which the fountain reached in its leaping. Fate was cruel enough to favour her; the stone met the ascending ball, and so exactly that the latter was hurled out of the column of water, and, flying over the heads of the nearest by-standers, fell upon the head of a child, and the thin glass was shivered in pieces. The child screamed, more from fright than pain,--a commotion ensued,--the mother of the sufferer rushed towards her darling with frantic gestures,--the "wound" was examined, embroidered handkerchiefs were dipped in the basin of the fountain and bound around the head, while like a dark cloud there hovered over the sympathetic crowd a fear lest "some fragment of glass should have penetrated the skull." Ernestine stood there like a culprit; she felt convicted of murder, and when she heard from all sides, "What unfeminine conduct! How savage and rude! How can they bring up the girl to be such a tom-boy?" she was utterly confounded. She had been like a boy, and it was all wrong,--what should she do to please people and make them like her a little? Then the old Geheimrath approached her and unclasped the hands which she was silently but convulsively wringing. "Be comforted, you pale little girl,--there is no great harm done. In future you must leave such exploits to boys." Then he left her and examined the wound, and declared laughingly that he needed a microscope to see it. The mothers of the party, however, showed all the more sympathy and anxiety in the matter that they were chagrined that Ernestine had displayed more skill than their own children.

Ernestine's delicate instinct surmised all this. She looked at the buzzing throng of her enemies with aversion, as at a swarm of wasps that she had disturbed. She listened to the noise that was made about the slight accident with infinite bitterness, and thought how at home, when her father's blows had bruised her, no one cared anything about it. When a few days before she had fallen and cut her forehead, she had had to wash it herself at the brook. And even the old gentleman had said that she should leave such exploits to boys. Then must she not contend even with boys if she could? Why not? Why were they so superior? It was unjust! She clenched her little fists. When she grew up she would show people how great the injustice was! That she was resolved upon.

Then little Angelika came running up, calling the children together for a game. "Come, Ernestine," she cried. "You did not mean to do it,--come, play blindman's buff with us."

Ernestine did not venture to make any objection; she was so cowed that she did just as they told her, and let them make her "blind man," and tie the handkerchief over her eyes. She never complained, although when they were tying on the bandage they pulled her hair so that she ground her teeth with pain. And then they all began to tease her. One pulled at one of her long locks; another terrified her by putting beetles and caterpillars upon her neck,--the usual tricks of the game, that are easily borne when they are understood among little friends, but enough to drive a shy child, that does not know how to defend herself, to despair. No one would be caught by the ugly stranger, who had only been admitted to the game at the express desire of the hostess, and all felt themselves justified in playing all manner of tricks upon her. Ernestine caught no one, and ran hither and thither in vain. She was too conscientious to raise the handkerchief a little that she might see where she was,--that would have been acting a falsehood, and she never told falsehoods. Suddenly a hand seized her straw hat, and the worn old brim gave way, and fell upon her shoulders like a collar, to the great delight of the rest. It was a terrible loss for the poor child; for she knew that she should get no other hat at home, but would be punished for her carelessness. She grasped after her tormentor, and seized her by the skirt; but she was one of the larger girls, and tore herself away, leaving a piece of her elegant summer dress in Ernestine's hands, which had clutched it tightly. She could not see how the girl ran to her mother, bewailing the injury to her dress; the bandage over her eyes beneficently shielded her from perceiving the angry looks of the ladies, and absorbed the tears which she was silently shedding for her straw hat. She stood motionless in the middle of the lawn, and did not know what to do,--for no children seemed to be near,--the game appeared to be interrupted. Suddenly she received a sound box on the ear. The younger brother of the aggrieved young lady had stolen up and avenged his sister. Then the tormented child was filled with indignation and rage that almost deprived her of reason. She seized the boy as he tried to pass her, and began to straggle with him. He forced her backwards, step by step. She could not free her hands to untie the bandage; she did not know where she was; she would not let go her enemy, for her sufferings had filled her little heart with hate and fury. There was a scream, and at the same instant she stumbled over something and fell; she kept her hold of her foe, but she felt that she was up to her knees in water,--she had stumbled into the basin of the fountain. The guests hurried up. First seizing the boy, who was still in Ernestine's grasp, they placed him in safety, and then they helped out the trembling child, who stood there with torn, dripping clothes, an object of terror and disgust to herself and to everybody else.

What mischief the horrible creature had done! She had almost fractured one child's skull, she had torn the expensive dress of another, and had tried to drown a third!

"Pray, my dear Staatsräthin, have my carriage ordered," said one of the injured mothers; "one's life is not safe here!"

"Supper is ready," replied the Staatsräthin. "Let me entreat you all to go into the house. I will answer for the lives of your children as long as they are my guests," she added with a slight smile.

The ladies all called their sons and daughters to them, to protect them from the little monster, who still stood there, bewildered and crushed, upon the lawn, looking on with a bleeding heart, as the children, laughing and joking, clung to their parents, whom they kissed and caressed with affectionate freedom. Every child there had a mother or a father who fondled it. She--she alone was thrust out and forsaken,--no one remembered that she was tired and wet through,--no one cared for her. The charming little Angelika was everywhere in requisition, and could not come to her,--the Staatsräthin was entreating her guests to pardon her for inviting a child whom she did not know; how could she possibly suppose that Herr von Hartwich had a daughter so neglected? Ernestine heard it all. She could no longer stand,--she fell upon her knees, and, sobbing violently, hid her face in her hands. The Staatsräthin was now free to come to her, and hastily approached.

"Oh, you poor little thing, you are wet through, and no one has thought of you," she cried kindly, at sight of Ernestine. "Go into the house quickly, and put on a pair of my little girl's shoes and stockings; my room is just to the right of the drawing-room. Go immediately,--do you hear? I cannot stay away from my guests."

"Forgive me,--it is not my fault!" stammered Ernestine.

"Indeed it is not, my dear child," said the Staatsräthin gravely. "I only pity you,--I am not angry with you! But hurry now and take off your dress,--I will send you your supper to my room. I know you would rather eat it alone."

And she hastened away to her guests just as a vehicle drove up and a strikingly handsome young man about twenty years old sprang out and hurried up to her. "My dear boy," she cried, "is it you? I did not expect you yet!"

The youth kissed her hand and bowed courteously to the rest. The Staatsräthin's eyes rested upon him with the pride with which a woman during her life regards two men only,--a lover and a darling son. The guests surrounded him with congratulations upon the day's success; Angelika danced around him, and the other children all wanted a hand or a kiss. There was quite a little uproar of delight.

Suddenly the Staatsräthin cried out in a startled tone, "Little Ernestine has gone! Heavens, that poor child wet through in the cool evening air! I cannot allow it! Johannes, my dear son, run quickly, bring her back."

"Who,--what?" he asked in amazement.

"But, my dearest Staatsräthin," said the mother of the boy whom Ernestine's shot had wounded, "how can you worry yourself about the little witch? she is tougher than our children."

The Staatsräthin glanced at her contemptuously, and, turning to Johannes, continued: "She is a pale, meanly-clad little girl, eleven or twelve years of age; you cannot miss her if you take the path to Hartwich's estate; she is his daughter. Hasten, Johannes, hasten!" He obeyed, while she conducted her guests to their sumptuous repast.

Meanwhile Ernestine ran through the grove as quickly as she could, and began to breathe freely as she lost sight of the house where she had undergone so much. But her strength soon failed her. Her wet shoes and stockings clung like heavy lumps of lead to her weary feet and impeded her steps; she was conscious of gnawing hunger, and the first care for the future that she had yet felt in her short life assailed her,--she was afraid that it would be too late for her to get anything to eat when she reached home; it was growing dark, and it would be ten o'clock; Frau Gedike would be in bed. And that was not the worst that she had to look forward to; the straw hat, whose brim was still having around her neck,--the heavy, torn straw hat, would certainly bring her a severe chastisement. She sat down upon a mound on the borders of the grove, and took off the brim to see if she could contrive some way of fastening it to the crown, which she carried in her hand. The tree above her shook its boughs compassionately and threw down its leaves upon her dishevelled locks. She never heeded them,--the conviction lay heavy upon her childish heart that she could not possibly mend the hat before Frau Gedike would see it. Tear after tear dropped upon the fragments, and her large, swimming eyes glimmered in the moonlight from out her pale face like glow-worms in a lily-cup. Suddenly she started violently, for some one stood before her, and she recognized the young man whose arrival had just enabled her to make her escape. He looked at her silently for a while, and then said, "Are you the little girl who came to us to-day, and then ran away secretly?"

"Yes," stammered Ernestine.

"Why have you done so?" he asked further.

Ernestine made no reply. She was more ashamed before Johannes than before all the rest of the company. He was very different from every one else there,--so proud and strong,--he would despise her more than the others had done, for he was much handsomer and finer than they, and worth more than all of them. She did not venture to look up at him; she was afraid of meeting another of those glances that had so tortured her. Then the young man took her hand and said kindly, "Well, you pale little dryad, can you not speak? Will you go with me, or would you rather spend the night in your tree?"

"I want to go home!" said Ernestine.

"I cannot let you go home. I must take you to my mother. She is afraid you will take cold. Come!"

Ernestine shrunk back. "I cannot go there any more!"

"Why not? What have they done to you?"

"They laughed at me, and jeered me," cried the irritated child; "they despised me; and I will not be despised! I will not!"

The young man looked at her thoughtfully.

"Even if I am ugly," she continued, "and poor, and badly taught, and awkward, I will not be treated like a dog!" There was a tone of despair in her voice, her chest panted within her narrow dress, her teeth chattered with cold and excitement.

"Poor child!" said Johannes; "they must have used you ill,--but my mother was surely kind to you?"

"Yes, she was kind, but she was vexed with me at last; I heard her blaming me to the others. And I do not want to see her again,--not until I am grown up and can be as dignified and gentle as she is."

"Are you so certain, then, that you will one day be as gentle and dignified?" asked Johannes smiling.

"Yes, the schoolmaster says, and the old gentleman said too, that if I were a boy something might be made of me. Oh, something shall be made of me,--if I am only a girl. I will not always have boys held up to me; when I am grown up, they shall see that a girl is as good as a boy; all these bad, unkind people shall respect me; if they do not, I would rather die!"

"You queer child!" laughed Johannes, "it would be hard to tame you. But see, if you stay any longer here with me in the night air, you will take cold, and then you may die before you have carried out all your resolutions; think how bad that will be!"

With these words he attempted to lead the child away with him, but she snatched her hand from him and clung to the tree beneath which she had been sitting. "No, no," she breathlessly entreated, "dear sir, let me go--do not take me back again--please, please, not there!"

"Obstinate little thing, you must come," laughed Johannes. "Do you suppose I can go back without you, after having been sent to find you like a stray lamb? My mother would shut me up for three days upon bread and water if I did not bring you back; you would not like that, would you?"

"Ah, you are laughing at me. I will not go back with you, I will not," sobbed Ernestine.

"Will not? What is the use of such words from a weak little girl who can be easily carried in arms?" With these words Johannes good-humouredly lifted Ernestine from the ground and placed her on his shoulder to take her back to the castle. But she succeeded in grasping an overhanging branch of the oak-tree just above her, and, before Johannes could prevent it, she had swung herself up by it, and was clambering like a squirrel from bough to bough.

"This is delightful!" cried Johannes, much amused; "you are really, then, a dryad in disguise? Such a prize must not escape; to be sure, I never dreamed to-day, when I passed my examination, that the new Herr Doctor's first feat would be to climb a tree after a wayward little girl; but the episode is much more poetic than marching up and down stairs, making my best bow to my old examiners." Daring this soliloquy be had taken off his coat and climbed into the tree.

But when he tried to seize Ernestine, she retreated to the extremity of the bough upon, which she was sitting, and was quite out of his reach; he could not follow her, for the slender branch creaked and drooped so, even beneath the child's light weight, that he momentarily expected it to break. The jest had become earnest indeed: if the little girl fell, she would fall a double distance,--the height of the tree and of the hill which the tree crowned. Quick as thought the young man swung himself down to the ground, and took his station where he might, if possible, receive Ernestine in his arms if she fell. For the first time he now saw how high she was perched, and a cloud before the moon just at the moment prevented his perceiving the exact direction that she must take in falling. His anxiety was intense. The responsibility of a human life was suddenly thrust upon him. If he did not succeed in catching the falling child, she would shortly lie before him, if not a corpse, at least with broken limbs. The steep hill, too, made it almost impossible for him to maintain a firm footing; wherever he planted his feet, they slipped continually. The blood rushed to his face; his heart beat audibly; with outstretched arms he gazed up at the child, who sat above him, all unconscious of her danger.

"Little one," he cried breathlessly, "the branch where you are sitting will not bear you! scramble back again, or you will fall!"

"I will not come down until you promise me not to carry me back! I shall not fall," she panted, and snatched at a stronger bough above her, but it sprang back from her grasp, leaving only a few twigs in her hand.

"I will promise anything that you want," cried Johannes in deadly terror, "only go back quickly to the trunk--quickly--quickly!"

The bough cracked, just as the child swung herself towards the trunk, and it fell to the ground,--leaving her clinging to the stump where it grew from the trunk; and when Johannes climbed up to her and she could at last reach his shoulder, she was trembling so with fright that she willingly clasped her thin arms around his neck. With difficulty he reached the ground again with his burden, his hands scratched and bleeding and his shirt-sleeve torn. He put down Ernestine, and, stepping back a pace or two, regarded her gravely; then, after wiping the moisture from his brow, he began in a serious tone of voice, "Do you know what I would do if I were your father?"

Ernestine looked up at him inquiringly.

"I would give you a taste of the rod, that you might learn not to frighten people so just for your own wayward whims!"

These words, prompted by the young man's irritation at the anxiety to which he had been subjected, had a fearful effect upon the child. She gave a piercing cry, and threw herself upon the ground. "Oh, nothing but blows, blows--he too, he too! Who will not strike me and abuse me? who is there to take pity upon me?" and she sobbed uncontrollably.

"Good heavens," said Johannes, half compassionately and half annoyed, "was there ever such a child! First you climb into a tree at peril of your life, just that you may gratify your self-will, and then a single word of blame crushes you to the earth. I never saw anything like it!" Saying this, he lifted her up and held her out before him in the moonlight, regarding her as one would some rare animal or natural curiosity.

"Here is a thing," he said, more to himself than to Ernestine, "so frail and delicate that you could crush it in your grasp, but there is such strength of will in the little frame that one is forced to yield to it, and such a wildly throbbing heart in the little breast that one is carried away by it in spite of one's self. I should like to know what odd combinations have produced this strange piece of humanity. Do not cry any more, little one; I will not harm you--what eyes the creature has! You are a remarkable child, but I would not like to have the charge of you--you would puzzle one well, and force and blows would have no effect upon you!"

With these words he put her down upon the ground again and picked up his coat to put it on. As he did so, he felt something hard in the pocket; he looked to see what it was, and drew out a book in a splendid binding.

"Ah," he cried gaily, "I had forgotten this. Can you read?"

Ernestine nodded. She was glad that she had not to say no; how ashamed she would have been!

"Come, that's right!" said the young man; and Ernestine was very proud of those first words of commendation, and determined instantly to be doubly diligent, that she might some time hear just such another "That's right!"

Johannes put the book into her hand. "There, you shall have that, that you may carry something pleasant home with you after such a dreary day. The stories are charming. I brought it out for my little sister Angelika, but I could not give it to her because I had to run after you. Now I am glad that I have it still and can give it to you."

"Yes--but Angelika?" Ernestine asked hesitatingly.

"She shall have another to-morrow. Take it, and read the story of the Ugly Duckling; that will comfort you when people are cross to you. Take it--why do you hesitate?"

The child took the book as carefully and timidly as if it were in reality a fairy book and would vanish at her touch. When she had it in her hands and it did not disappear, and she could really believe in her happiness in receiving such a present, she uttered a scarcely audible "Thank you very much!" but the look that accompanied the words touched Johannes.

"You do not often have presents?" he asked.

"Never!"

"Oh! you seem not to be very affectionately treated. Does not your mother ever give you anything?"

"I have no mother. She died because I was not a boy."

"A most remarkable cause of death," observed Johannes, half dryly, half compassionately.

"Ah, if I had a mother, everything would be different." And the large tears rolled down over her cheeks.

"Listen, little one," said Johannes kindly, after a pause. "I have a dear mother, and I will share her with you--half a mother's heart is better than none at all. Come home with me. You shall be my little sister, and you will be gentle enough when you know us better."

Ernestine shook her head decidedly. The thought of returning to the castle again filled her with dismay. "No, no, never!" she cried in terror. "Your mother would not love me--she could not! You promised me a minute ago not to force me to anything, and if you think now that I ought to do as you please, because you have given me the book, I would rather not have it. There, take it--I will not have it!"

Johannes rejected the offered book with some vexation. "Keep it," he said. "I gave it to you unconditionally. I only thought that my kindness had made you gentler and more docile, but I was wrong. You are not to be moved by kindness either. Sad to see a heart so early hardened!"

Ernestine stood motionless, with downcast eyes--she scarcely breathed; the emotions that agitated her were so novel, so different from anything she had hitherto experienced, that she struggled in vain to give utterance to them; her childish lips had no words to express them. She was pained, and yet her pain, although deeper than any she had already suffered, had no bitterness in it. She did not hate him who had caused it--she could have kissed his hand, and, falling at his feet, begged him to forgive her--but she did not dare to do so.

"Well," he asked, after a moment's silence, "shall I go home with you?"

Ernestine shook her head.

"Not that, either? Will you go alone?" he asked impatiently.

Ernestine nodded.

"Well, I have promised to do as you pleased, and I shall keep my promise, although I do not think it right to leave you to go home alone so late at night. Let me at least go with you across the fields? Are you grown dumb?"

Ernestine lifted to his her large melancholy eyes so beseechingly that he lost his composure. "You are enough to drive one insane, you enigmatical little creature! Who taught you that look--the look of an angel imprisoned by some evil magician in the body of a kobold? God knows what will become of you! You will not let me come, then? No? Are you not afraid? Nothing to be got out of you but a shake of the head! Well, go! I cannot force you. Good-night, then!" He held out his hand; she seized it, pressed it with passionate energy, and then ran across the fields as fast as her feet could carry her. Johannes let her run for some minutes, and then followed her at a distance; he could not allow the helpless child to go home without watching over her safety. She ran as if she had wings, without once looking round; but Johannes noticed that she kissed the book several times, and pressed it to her heart, as if it had been some living thing. When at last he came in sight of Ernestine's home, he stopped. "Heaven be merciful to the man who will one day take her for a wife!" he thought, and slowly turned away.

Ernestine entered the garden of her dreary home with a throbbing heart. A grumbling maid-servant opened the door for her. "You are late," she scolded. "That is just like you--first you wouldn't go, and then you don't want to come home. You always want to do something else than what you should."

Ernestine made no reply. "Can I have something to eat?" she asked briefly.

"To eat! Likely, indeed! Am I to go to the stable at ten o'clock at night and milk a cow for you? for there is nothing else that I can get. You know well enough that I have no keys!"

"Is Frau Gedike in bed, then?"

"If you were not so stupid, you might know that!"

"But I am hungry!"

"That serves you right; you should have eaten enough at the party. Of course they gave you something to eat?"

Ernestine was silent, and followed the maid into the room, where she hastily concealed her torn hat in the wardrobe. "My feet are wet," she said, shivering. "Give me some dry stockings."

"Of course you have been dragging through all the puddles, and then want dry stockings at this hour of the night! Get into bed as soon as you can; you will have no other stockings to-night. Good-night--I am going to bed myself." And the servant left the room, taking with her the dim tallow candle that she had in her hand, and Ernestine was left alone in the apartment, into which the moon shone brightly. Suppressed rage at the servant's coarse harshness burrowed and gnawed in the child's heart like a hidden mole. Everything that had lately happened vanished at this rude contact. Her soul had expanded at the first touch of a large, kindly nature, like a bud in the air of spring--the frost that now fell upon it was doubly painful. She was again the same forsaken, abused child whose vital energies were consumed by impotent hate of her tormentors. Had she really lived the last hour! Had any one really spoken so kindly to her--one, too, better and handsomer than all the others?

She caught up her book as if it were a talisman; it was real; it had not vanished; it was all true, then. And yet she had been so self-willed and cross to the kind, kind gentleman, and had not even told him how grateful she was; how he must despise her! He could not do otherwise. She understood now how different she must be before she could hope to win the liking of such a man as Johannes. How should she do it? She could not tell; but something stirred within her that exalted her above herself. She looked up to heaven in childlike entreaty, and prayed, "Dear God, make me good!" Then she pressed the book to her heart; it was her most precious possession, her first friend; and the desire took hold of her to see now what this friend would tell her. But she could not read by moonlight, and she dared not get a candle, for she slept next to Frau Gedike, who allowed no reading at night. She stood hesitating and looked sorrowfully at the beautiful binding, with its gay arabesques. Suddenly it occurred to her that there was always a night-lamp burning in her father's room; it was a happy thought. She drew off her wet boots with difficulty, and crept softly into Hartwich's apartment. The invalid was lying upon his back, sound asleep. He breathed and snored so loudly that the child was almost terrified; but she was determined to proceed, and slipped past the bed. She seated herself cautiously, opened the book in a state of feverish expectation, and of course turned to the story that Johannes had mentioned to her. The book contained the charming, touching tales of Hans Andersen. Ernestine, greatly moved, read the story of the Ugly Duckling. She read how it was abused and maltreated by all because it was so different from the other ducks, and how at last it came to be a magnificent swan, far finer and more beautiful than the insignificant fowls who had despised it. The impression made upon her by this story is not to be described. The poor duckling's woes were hers also, and as if upon swan's pinions the promise of a fair future hovered above her from the page that she was reading. "Shall I ever be such a swan?" she asked again and again. Her heart overflowed with new emotions of joy and pain, she covered her eyes with her thin hands and sobbed as if she would, as the saying is, "cry her soul out." Then her father awoke, and called out, "Who is there?" Ernestine hastened to him and fell on her knees at his bedside. She seized his hand and would have kissed it; he snatched it angrily away, but the tears that she had shed had melted her very heart. "Father, dear father!" she cried, "I have been very naughty and self-willed. Forgive, and love me only a little, and I will love you dearly!"

Hartwich turned his face to the wall, and growled, "Why did you wake me? Where's the use of slipping in here at this hour? Do you think I had rather listen to your stupid whining than sleep?"

"Father," cried Ernestine, taking his lame hand that he could not withdraw from her. "Father, do not send me away from you. I will be good,--help me to be so. I cannot be good if you are always harsh to me. I saw to-day how all the children have parents who love them. I only am disliked by every one, and yet I have a heart too, and would love to see kind looks and hear kind words. I will not cry ever any more, if you will not make me cry, and I will try my best to be just like a boy, that you may not be sorry any more that I am a girl. Ah, father, it seems to-day as if the dear God in heaven had told me what I long for. Love, father, love,--ah, give me some, and take pity upon your poor ugly child!"

The invalid had turned towards the child again, and was staring at her in amazement, with lack-lustre eyes; it seemed as if some unbidden feeling were struggling for utterance from the depths of his moral and physical degradation; his breath came quick, he tried to speak. Ernestine did not venture to look at him; a strong odour of brandy told her that her father's face was near her own, but this odour was so utterly disgusting to her that she involuntarily recoiled, and thus avoided the lips that would perhaps have bestowed upon her the first kiss that she had ever in her life received from them. The invalid must have known this, for he turned away again, muttering something unintelligible. After a long pause, he felt for a tumbler that stood on a table beside his bed, but it was empty. "I'm thirsty!" he said peevishly. "Shall I bring you some water, father?" asked Ernestine. The sick man made a gesture of disgust "No! but you can go up to your uncle and tell him to send me that medicine that he spoke of; he will know what I want. But ask him only,--do you hear?--him only. And tell no one that I sent you, or you shall suffer for it, I promise you. And now go quickly: I'm tortured with thirst!"

Ernestine arose from her knees, and looked at her father with the grief that we feel when we have lavished our best, our most sacred emotions upon an unworthy object. Hitherto she had required nothing of him; to-day, for the first time, as she looked around for some one to whose love, in her loneliness, she possessed a right, it had occurred to her that she had a father. She had turned to him with an overflowing heart, and had found a drunkard, who had resigned all claims to respect, both as a man and a father. Mute and crushed alike physically and mentally, she slipped out and up the stairs to her uncle. She was to bring brandy to the sick man, although she remembered that the physician had forbidden all heating drinks; but she must fulfil her father's commands, or receive the cruellest treatment at his hands. She entered her uncle's room, slowly and timidly; she was afraid of his wife. But Bertha had gone to bed; there was no one in the room but Leuthold, who was standing by the open window, to the frame of which he had screwed a long tube.

"Ah, little Ernestine, have you come so late to see your uncle?" he said kindly.

"Uncle, what is that?" asked Ernestine, forgetting her errand in her wonder at the strange instrument.

"That is a telescope," her uncle informed her.

"What are you doing with it?" she asked further.

"I am looking into the moon, my child."

"Ah! can you do that?" she cried, in the greatest amazement.

"Certainly I can. Would you like to look through it?"

"Ah, yes; if I only might!" whispered Ernestine, enchanted at the offer.

Leuthold lifted her upon the window-sill and adjusted the telescope for her. She was half frightened when she suddenly found the shining sphere, which she had always seen hovering so far above her in the sky, brought so near to her eyes. Her breast expanded to receive such an inconceivable miracle. She gazed and gazed, looking, breathless with the desire of knowledge, at the mountains, valleys, and jagged craters that were so magically revealed. The warm night air fanned her burning brow. Everything around her faded and was forgotten as the tired heart of the child throbbed with fervent longing for the peace of that new, distant world.