Gritli's Children by Johanna Spyri

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To Mrs. Stanhope too the blow was a severe one. She blamed herself for
not having noticed that the child had been growing thin and pale during
the last few weeks, and she recalled, now that it was too late, several
times when she had thought that Elsli looked over-heated and tired, but
she had done nothing about it, thinking it only a passing matter. She
sent at once for the physician. He gave little hope of the child's
recovery. He said she had evidently been "running down" for some time,
and she must have been eating too little and doing too much, and,
besides, he suspected some mental depression and anxiety. All this,
acting on a frame naturally delicate and weakened by the hardships of
her early years, had more than counteracted the gain that Elsli had
certainly made during the first months of her life at Rosemount.

Clarissa then told Mrs. Stanhope the story which the little girl had
related to her, and their tears fell fast over the simple tale of pity
and self-sacrifice. Mrs. Stanhope's heart smote her, as she learned how
Elsli had suffered from fear of her displeasure, and from the
concealment into which this had led her, a concealment so foreign to her
nature. She went to the child's bedside, and, embracing her more fondly
than she had ever done before, she said tenderly:--

"I can't tell you, darling child, how sorry I am that you should have
been afraid of me. I never meant it should be so, but I am naturally
reserved, and when my Nora died, I felt as if all my power of loving had
died with her. I liked you, and I meant to take good care of you, but I
see now that I have seemed cold to you, and haven't shown you the love
that has really been growing up for you in my heart. Forgive me, dear,
and believe that I do love you, and that I will be a real loving mother
to Fani, as I would be to you--" She stopped, overcome by her own
emotion.

Elsli's face beamed with a radiant smile. She lifted her feeble arm and
laid it around Mrs. Stanhope's neck.

"I am going to Nora," she whispered; "I will tell her how good you have
been to us. I love you," she added, and it went to Mrs. Stanhope's heart
that it was the first time the child had ever said these words to her.
She could not speak, but she drew Elsli's head to rest upon her
shoulder, and in a few moments the sick girl fell asleep with a peaceful
look upon her face, and Mrs. Stanhope sat holding her unwearied, till
Clarissa came and gently laid the little head back upon the pillows.

For several days Elsli continued in a critical state; but they were
happy days. Mrs. Stanhope never left her, and it seemed as if she could
not do enough to show her tenderness. Clarissa was devoted to her
comfort, and brought her every day news from her friends in the
fisherman's hut, whom Mrs. Stanhope had already begun to help in the
wisest and kindest ways. The poor family sent many messages of love and
gratitude to their little helper, and these Clarissa delivered; but she
did not tell Elsli how unhappy they were at the thought of losing her,
nor how the father said:--

"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 God 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 assurance 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 passing 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 Duesseldorf 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 gratitude,
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.

[Illustration]

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