The morning of the procession had come—such a glorious morning!—bright sunshine, blue sky, and a soft breeze blowing down from the hill. At an early hour the whole town was astir. Every one was anxious to join in or to see this procession; for the brave general for whose home-coming it was planned was the favourite of the town, and all were anxious to do him honour.  
It seemed to them only a few days ago that they had seen his sturdy figure walking down the shady alley accompanied by his sons, fine fair-haired young fellows, who had since then fallen wounded to death in the dreadful battle of Sedan.
 
Those whose work could be got over in the early morning rose with the sun, so as to leave the afternoon free to do honour to their general. The washerwomen at the river's edge were battering their linen on the stones from early dawn, while the usually[Pg 250] sulky river crept in to-day bright with little rivulets of gold; and the walls of the gray old castle were gay with flags, whose shining spear-heads caught the first rays of the rising sun.
 
In the streets the pigeons were already pecking happily, for the noisy tread of the early risers had disturbed them; and beneath the windows of Violet's house a whole cluster were collected, Madam Adler having already risen and thrown out to them a large sieveful of corn which she had brought from the bakery for the purpose.
 
She looked up at Violet's window before she turned to re-enter the shop, and sighed heavily. She had been, in the evening before, to see her little darling, and to show her Ella dressed in her angel's garments,—soft white raiment, and glistening wings. But the effect on Violet had been so overpowering that Madam Adler had hurried Ella away, and had herself been obliged to listen to a lecture from Evelina for having so thoughtlessly broken in on the child's evening sleep and set her heart beating with a distress too deep for words.
 
Madam Adler had made no reply to Evelina's reproaches, for her own heart was too full of pain, to see the great change which had lately come over the little wan face; and when she saw the sudden lustre[Pg 251] which burned in Violet's eyes at the first sight of Ella with the white dress and the shining wings, and then listened to the passionate sobbing which followed, she had gone back to her own house overwhelmed with grief at the result of her visit, and she longed for the day of the procession to be over, that the subject might pass away from Violet's mind, and Ella's wings be folded up and put away.
 
Ella, upstairs in her room, was awake also this morning at an unusually early hour. She could not rest, with the joyous expectation of being an angel and walking in the great procession; and ever so many times she had risen and gone over and touched with her soft, fat fingers the wings so beautifully tipped with silver and shining with stars, and which lay upon the table in the middle of the room: but every time she looked at them a sorrowful remembrance came over her of Violet's face and her bitter tears; and at last the little girl walked back to her bedside, and kneeling down said softly,—
 
"Oh, thou good Lord Jesus, be very kind to poor Violet in the house opposite, and give her wings too, like Ella!"
 
She looked up very steadily at the ceiling as she said these words. Her wide-open eyes seemed to see far up above the roof and the chimneys and the[Pg 252] storks. The soft yellow hair was straggling out in long loops and curls from under her linen night-cap, her elbows rested on the bed, and her dimpled fingers were clasped. Was she, after all, so unlike an angel, this "fat Miss Ella," at whose appearance Evelina could not restrain her laughter?
 
When Ella had finished her little prayer, and was just saying "Amen" in a rather loud voice, the door opened and Fritz walked in.
 
"What art thou doing, Ella?" he said rather curiously. "Out of bed already, at this early hour, and saying thy prayers! Dost thou think thou art an angel already?"
 
Ella blushed crimson as she stood up, and she shuffled her little pink feet over each other uneasily on the carpet.
 
"It was only about Violet," she said nervously, and her eyes travelled back again to the wings shining so softly on the dark oil-cloth cover of the table.
 
"So thou hast been thinking of her too," said Fritz, drawing a deep breath. "I have thought of nothing else all night, and that is why I too am up so early, and dressed, as thou seest, for going out."
 
Ella had noticed that Fritz had his cap in his hand, and she had wondered at it.
 
[Pg 253]
 
"Well, well?" she asked open-mouthed.
 
"Well, I am going off to the police barrack to try and see Violet's friend. Mother told me last night that she heard the procession was not to pass through our street at all, but was to turn up by the cathedral and across the market square to the station; and then poor Violet could not see it at all, or hear any of the music. Mother says she is glad, but I am not a bit; for look at this, Ella." Fritz drew from his trowsers pocket a little crumpled scrap of paper and spread it out upon the palm of his hand. "She dropped this out of the window to me last night;—and I know this one thing." Fritz spoke in a curious, husky voice, and turned away his face.
 
"What thing, Fritz?"
 
"Violet will never send me any more notes. Look at this;—I was half an hour before I could make it out."
 
There was a large V, and then a lot of trembling up-and-down strokes without any pretence at printing, only there was a dot over one stroke, and a letter something like a "t" at the ............