Uncle Titus and His Visit to the Country | Page 6

a lively little maiden, and took so keen an interest in all about her, that her father often used joyfully to observe it, saying,
"That child is exactly like her dear mother; just the same movements, the same indomitable spirit and enjoyment of life!"
But now all this vivacity seemed extinguished. Dora was very careful never to provoke her aunt to complaints, which she dreaded exceedingly. Yet for all her pains it would happen sometimes, most unexpectedly and when she was least looking for a storm, that one would break over her head, and frighten all her thoughts and words back into her childish heart; nay, almost check the flow of youth in her veins.
One evening, she came home from her work filled with enthusiasm, by a song she had been listening to, played by her unseen musician. Dora knew the words well:
"Live your life merrily While the lamp glows, Ere it can fade and die, Gather the rose."
Dora had often sung this song, but she had never dreamed that it could be played on the piano, and it sounded so beautiful, so wonderful to her, that she said to her aunt, as she entered the dining-room,
"Oh, Aunt Ninette, how delightful it must be to know how to play on the piano! Do you think that I can ever learn it in my life?"
"Oh, in heaven's name, how can you ask me such a thing? How can you worry me so? How could you do anything of the kind in our house? Think of the terrible din that a piano makes! And where would the money come from if you could find the time? Oh, Dora, where did you get hold of that unfortunate idea? I should think I had enough to worry me already, without your asking me such a thing as this into the bargain."
Dora hastened to assure her aunt that she had no intention of asking for any thing, and the storm blew over. But never again did she dare even to speak of music, no matter how eagerly she had listened to the piano, during her long sewing lessons.
Every evening after Dora had learned all her lessons for school, while her aunt in utter silence knitted or nodded, the child climbed up to her little attic room; and before she closed her tiny window, she leaned out into the night to see whether the stars were shining, and looking down upon her from the high heavens. Five there were always up there just above her head; they stood close together and Dora looked at them so often and so steadily, that she began to consider them as her own special property--or rather as friends who came every night and twinkled down into her heart, to tell her that she was not utterly alone. One night the idea came to her that these bright stars were loving messengers, who brought her kisses and caresses from her dear parents. And from these heavenly messengers the lonely child gained nightly comfort when she climbed to her little chamber in the roof, with her feeble candle for her only companion. She sent her prayers up to heaven through the tiny window, and received full assurance in return, that her Father in heaven saw her, and would not forsake her. Her father had told her that God would always help those who trusted him and prayed to him, and she had no fear.
And so the long hot summer passed, and Autumn came. Then followed a long, long winter with its cold and darkness; such cold that Dora often thought that even the hot summer days were better, for she no longer dared to open the window to look for her friends the stars, and often she could hardly get to sleep, it was so cold in the little room, under the roof. At last the Spring rolled round again, and the days passed one like another, in the quiet dwelling of Uncle Titus. Dora worked harder than ever on the big shirts, for she had learned to sew so well, that she had to help the seamstress in earnest now. When the hot days came again, something happened; and now Aunt Ninette had reason enough to lament. Uncle Titus had an attack of dizziness, and the doctor was sent for.
"I suppose it is thirty years since you went beyond the limits of the town of Karlsruhe, and in all that time you have never left your desk except to eat and sleep. Am I right?" asked the physician, after he had looked steadily at Uncle Titus and tapped him a little here and there.
There was no denying that the doctor had stated the case truly.
"Very well," he said, "now off with you! go away at once; to-day rather than to-morrow. Go to Switzerland.