The next morning the doctor came early, and, true to his promise, acted as scribe for Violet. Such a long letter as was despatched to poor John, full of all the little scraps of news that Violet had been treasuring up for ever so long, and a few leaves of the ivy which grew up the side of the house and in at the window where she generally sat, and one yellow feather which had dropped out of the canary bird's wing. Violet felt quite elated when the letter was finished, and the doctor himself carried it off to the post, leaving her smiling, with eyes bright with pleasure and cheeks just a little flushed by the unusual exertion.  
When the doctor was gone she insisted on being lifted up and placed as usual in the window. Evelina was surprised at the energy she showed in all her movements, and the weary time of her dressing went on with fewer sighs than usual.
 
[Pg 182]
 
It was not until she was actually seated in her old chair in the embrasure that she seemed for the first time to realize the terrible trouble that had come upon her friends in the house opposite. She had been so busy thinking of her father and of the letter which was to go to him, that she had not taken in all the sorrow that had fallen on the town and its inhabitants; but she could not sit long at the window this morning and not see or hear something of it. It seemed to her, after a little time, that all the people in Edelsheim were weeping.
 
There were women standing at Madam Adler's door wringing their hands, and others with aprons to their eyes sobbing. Many of them had slips of paper in their hands which they gazed at every moment, and then burst out crying afresh. Even the policeman, as he passed down the street opposite, had tears in his eyes, and as he tried to smile up at her window Violet saw how they fell on the breast of his coat.
 
"What are they all crying for in the street below?" she asked plaintively, as Evelina came out of the inner room and sat down in the window seat opposite her: "is Fritz's father so very, very ill, or what is it?"
 
"It is not only for him they are weeping, poor creatures," cried Evelina, gazing earnestly after the[Pg 183] policeman, who was slowly pacing down the street with his head bent upon his chest. "They have all suffered, poor souls. There is not one in Edelsheim that has not lost a friend, or a brother, a father, or a husband, or a lover. The regiment was in the very front of the battle, and the men were mowed down like grass; at least so the paper says."
 
"What paper?"
 
"The newspaper: but the doctor said thou wert on no account to see it; indeed I ought not to speak to thee of such things at all, only one must answer plain questions when they are put to one.—Oh, here comes the little Ella and her brother; they are crossing the street, and they will bring thee all the news."
 
Violet turned quickly round, for her eyes had been fixed with an ever increasing horror on Evelina's face, and now she just caught a glimpse of Ella's fair hair floating behind her as she passed under the overhanging eaves of the window.
 
In a moment more both children had burst into the room, Ella a little in advance of Fritz, who was quite breathless and red in his endeavours to keep pace with her, and had his hand tightly locked in the gathers of her dress, by which he vainly tried to hold her back.
 
"Hast thou heard, Violet?" cried Ella, her voice[Pg 184] raised almost to a scream as she endeavoured to be the first to tell the news,—"hast thou heard that father has lost his leg, one whole leg? It is quite true: first they shot it off, and then they cut it off, and now he is in the hospital. And the policeman's son has both his arms shot off him; and the father of the orange-girl is dead, and she was screaming all the morning on the steps of the chapel, and no oranges in her basket at all."
 
"Silence, you little dunderhead," cried Fritz, shaking Ella so violently by her skirt that she was forced for a moment to pause and resent his rudeness; "did not mother tell thee this morning that thou wert not to frighten Violet with all these stories?"
 
"But are they true?" asked Violet eagerly.
 
"Yes, quite true," echoed Ella.
 
Violet still looked towards Fritz for confirmation.
 
"Yes, they are quite true," he said gravely; "but thy father is safe. Mother said so; she had a telegram from him this morning."
 
"A telegram?"
 
"Well, yes. A message to say father was going on well, and to give thee his love."
 
"His love," echoed Violet in a whisper.
 
"And loads and loads of people are dead," continued Ella, who had not half exhausted her store of[Pg 185] news; "and the little man who used to sell the peppermint sticks has had his whole head blown off. His wife says it is not a bit true, and she wanted to go off in a cart this morning to look for him, only the doctor would not let her. Mother said the poor woman's head was gone; so then, you see, they would neither of them have heads, I suppose; and would not that be rather funny, Violet?"
 
Evelina tittered a little, and went into the next room to hide her laughter; but Fritz grew very red, and said angrily, "The little donkey! she does not know what she talks about, only picking up what other people say."
 
"I don't pick up what other people say. I heard every word, and lots more," rejoined Ella stoutly; but still she blushed at Fritz's reproof, and shuffled her shoulders along the wall uneasily.
 
"And is thy father very sick? will he come home soon?" asked Violet, whose face and lips had been gradually whitening as the children's talk went on.
 
"Ah, that I cannot tell thee. Mother says it will be a long time before he can move at all, and then he will have to get crutches."
 
"And must he always walk with crutches, always, always?" asked Violet, whose mind was only gradually opening up to all the sadness of the occasion.
 
[Pg 186]
 
"Yes, always," replied Fritz; "for, of course, he could not walk on one leg."
 
"I can hop on one leg," observed Ella from the corner into which she had been gradually retreating. "This morning, when I heard all about father, I hopped six times up and down the kitchen and never put my hand on anything."
 
"And can thy father never bake any more bread, nor stand any more at the door in the evening and kiss hands up to me?"
 
"That I do not know. He will stand, perhaps, in the bakery and look on; and then, thou knowest, he can have a chair put down in the doorway, and he can see thee from ............