Part 10 (2/2)

”Mayn't I have a look at it now, mother?” asked Elsa, as she struggled with the heavy sheepskin mantle and drew it out of the surrounding rubbish; ”the light will hold out for another half-hour at least, and to-morrow morning I shall have such a lot to do.”

”You may do what you like while the light lasts, my girl, but I won't have you waste the candle over this stupid business. Candle is very dear, and your father will never wear his bunda again after to-morrow.”

”I won't waste the candle, mother. But Pater Bonifacius is coming in to see me after vespers.”

”What does he want to come at an hour when all sensible folk are in bed?” queried Irma petulantly.

”He couldn't come earlier, mother dear; you know how busy he is always on Sundays . . . benediction, then christenings, then vespers. . . . He said he would be here about eight o'clock.”

”Eight o'clock!” exclaimed the woman, ”who ever heard of such a ridiculous hour? And candles are so dear--there's only a few centimetres of it in the house.”

”I'll only light the candle, mother, when the Pater comes,” said Elsa, with imperturbable cheerfulness; ”I'll just sit by the open door now and put a st.i.tch or two in father's bunda while the light lasts: and when I can't see any longer I'll just sit quietly in the dark, till the Pater comes. I shall be quite happy,” she added, with a quaint little sigh, ”I have such a lot to think about.”

”So have I,” retorted Irma, ”and I shall go and do my thinking in bed. I shall have to be up by six o'clock in the morning, I expect, and anyhow I hate sitting up in the dark.”

She turned to go into the inner room, but Elsa--moved by a sudden impulse--ran after her and put her arms round her mother's neck.

”Won't you kiss me, mother?” she said wistfully. ”You won't do it many more times in my old home.”

”A home you have often been ashamed of, my child,” the mother said sullenly.

But she kissed the girl--if not with tenderness, at any rate with a curious feeling of pity which she herself could not have defined.

”Good-night, my girl,” she said, with more gentleness than was her wont.

”Sleep well for the last time in your old bed. I doubt if to-morrow you'll get into it at all, and don't let the Pater stay too long and waste the candle.”

”I promise, mother,” said Elsa, with a smile; ”good-night!”

CHAPTER IX

”Then, as now, may G.o.d protect you.”

The bunda was very heavy. Elsa dragged it over her knee, and sat down on a low stool in the open doorway. She had pulled the table a little closer, and on it were her scissors, needles and cotton, as well as the box of matches and the candle which she would be allowed to light presently when Pater Bonifacius came.

The moth certainly had caused many ravages in the sheepskin cloak--there were tiny holes everywhere, and the fur when you touched it came out in handfuls. But as the fur would be turned inwards, that wouldn't matter so much. The bunda was quite wearable: there was just a bad tear in the leather close to the pocket, which might show and which must be mended.

Elsa threaded her needle, and began to hum her favourite song under her breath:

”Nincsen annyi tenger csillag az egen Mint a hanyszor vagy eszembe te nekem.”

”There are not so many myriads of stars in the sky as the number of times that my thoughts fly to thee!”

She was determined not to think any more of the past. In a few hours now that chapter in her life would be closed, and it was useless and wicked to be always thinking of the ”might-have-been.” Rather did she set herself resolutely to think of the future, of that part of it, at any rate, which was bright. There would be her mother installed in that comfortable house on the Kender Road, and with a nice bit of land and garden round in which to grow vegetables and keep some poultry. There would be her three cows and the pigs which Bela was giving her, and which he would graze on his own land.

Above all, there would be the comfortable bed and armchair for the sick man, and the little maid to wait upon him.

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