Part 3 (1/2)

[Sidenote: A Startling Face]

George Fasch kissed her and patted her shoulder; then a suppressed sob caught his ear. He held Anna away from him, and looked at her face.

It was red and green in streaks, and her eyes were red and inflamed. The father was startled by her appearance.

”What is the matter, dear child?” he said. ”You are ill.”

Then his eyes fell on her ap.r.o.n. Its crumpled state, and the red and green smears on it, showed the use to which it had been put, and he began to guess what had happened.

Anna hung her head.

”I was crying and I leaned against a tree. Oh, dear, it was a clean ap.r.o.n! Aunt will be vexed.”

Her father sighed, but he pitied her confusion.

”Why did you cry, my child?” he said, half-tenderly, half in rebuke.

”Aunt Christina means well, though she speaks abruptly.”

He only provoked fresh tears, but Anna tried so hard to keep them back that she was soon calm again.

”I am not vexed with Aunt Christina for scolding me,” she said; ”I deserved it; I am sorry for myself.”

”Well, well,” he said cheerfully, ”we cannot expect old heads on young shoulders.” His honest, sunburned face was slightly troubled as he looked at her. ”You will have to brush up a bit, you know, when Christina goes to Zurich. You are going to be left in charge of the house for a week or so.”

Anna pressed her hands nervously together. She felt that the house would suffer greatly under her guidance; but then, she should have her father all to herself in her aunt's absence, and she should be freed from those scathing rebukes which made her feel all the more clumsy and helpless when they were uttered in her father's presence.

George Fasch, however, had of late become very much aware of his daughter's awkwardness, and secretly he was troubled by the prospect of her aunt's absence. He was a kind man and an affectionate father, but he objected to Gretchen's unaided cookery, and he had therefore resolved to transact some long-deferred business in Zurich during his sister's stay there. This would lessen the number of his badly-cooked dinners at home.

”I shall start with Christina,” he said--”some one must go with her to Pardisla; and next day I shall come home by Malans, so you will have to meet me on Wednesday evening at the old place, eh, Anna?”

She nodded and smiled, but she felt a little disappointed. She reflected, however, that she should have her father alone for some days after his return.

Christina was surprised to see how cheerful the girl looked when she came indoors.

Rain fell incessantly for several days, and even when it ceased ma.s.ses of white vapour rose up from the neighbouring valleys and blotted out everything. The vapour had lifted, however, when Fasch and his sister started on their expedition, and Anna, tired of her week's seclusion, set out on a ramble. A strange new feeling came over the girl as soon as she lost sight of her aunt's straight figure. She was free, there would be no one to scold her or to make her feel awkward; she vaulted with delight, and with an ease that surprised her, over the fence that parted the two meadows; she looked down at her skirt, and she saw with relief that she had not much frayed it, yet she knew there were thorns, for there had been an abundance of wild roses in the hedge.

A lark was singing blithely overhead, and the gra.s.shoppers filled the air with joyful chirpings. Anna's face beamed with content.

”If life could be always like to-day!” she thought, ”oh, how nice it would be!”

[Sidenote: In the Marsh]

Presently she reached the meadow with the brook running across it, and she gave a cry of delight; down in the marsh into which the brook ran across the sloping field she saw a ma.s.s of bright dark-blue. These were gentian-flowers, opening blue and green blossoms to the suns.h.i.+ne, and in front of them the meadow itself was white with a sprinkling of gra.s.s of Parna.s.sus.

Anna had a pa.s.sionate love of flowers, and, utterly heedless of all but the joy of seeing them, she ran down the slope, and only stopped when she found herself ankle-deep in the marsh below, in which the gentian grew.

This sobered her excitement. She pulled out one foot, and was shocked to find that she had left her shoe behind in the black slime; she was conscious, too, that her other foot was sinking deeper and deeper in the treacherous marsh. There was nothing to hold by, there was not even an osier near at hand; behind the gentian rose a thicket of rosy-blossomed willow-herb, and here and there was a creamy ta.s.sel of meadowsweet, but even these were some feet beyond her grasp.

Anna looked round her in despair. From the next field came a clicking sound, and as she listened she guessed that old Andreas was busy mowing.