Christine’s eyes sparkled as the future opened before her, and she said, with emphasis, “If I could preserve health and strength, I would live a thousand years.”
“You can do much toward it. Every chance is in favor of prudence and wise action;” and, much relieved, her father went to the store.
Business had accumulated, and in complete absorption he gave himself to it. With an anxiety beyond expression, Dennis, flushed and trembling, ventured to approach. Merely glancing to see who it was, Mr. Ludolph, with his head bent over his writing, said, “Miss Ludolph is better—no fear of smallpox, I think—you need not write to your mother—greatly obliged.”
It was well for Dennis that his employer did not look up. The open face of Mr. Ludolph’s clerk expressed more than friendly interest in his daughter’s health. The young man went to his tasks with a mountain of fear lifted from his heart.
But the thought of the beloved one lying alone and sick at the hotel seemed very pathetic to him. Love filled his heart with more sympathy for Christine upon her luxurious couch, in rapid convalescence, than for all the hopeless suffering of Chicago. What could he do for her? She seemed so far off, so high and distant, that he could not reach her. If he ventured to send anything, prudence whispered that she would regard it as an impertinence. But love can climb every steep place, and prudence is not its grand-vizier.
Going by a fruit-store in the afternoon he saw some fine strawberries, the first in from the South. He bought a basket, decorated it with German ivy obtained at a flower-stand, and spirited it upstairs to his room as if it were the most dangerous of contraband. In a disguised hand he wrote on a card, “For Miss Ludolph.” Calling Ernst, who had little to do at that hour of the day, he said: “Ernst, my boy, take this parcel to Le Grand Hotel, and say it is for Miss Christine Ludolph. Tell them to send it right up, but on no account—remember, on no account—tell anyone who sent it. Carry it carefully in just this manner.”
Ernst was soon at his destination, eager to do anything for his friend.
After all, the day had proved a long one for Christine. Unaccustomed to the restraints of sickness, she found the enforced inaction very wearisome. Mind and body both seemed weak. The sources of chief enjoyment when well seemed powerless to contribute much now. In silken robe she reclined in an armchair, or languidly sauntered about the room. She took up a book only to throw it down again. Her pencil fared no better. Ennui gave to her fair young face the expression of one who had tried the world for a century and found it wanting. She was leaning her elbow on the windowsill, gazing vacantly into the street, when Ernst appeared.
“Janette,” she said, suddenly, “do you see that boy? He is employed at the store. Go bring him up here; I want him;” and with more animation than she had shown that day she got out materials for a sketch.
“I must get that boy’s face,” she said, “before good living destroys all his artistic merit.”
Ernst was unwilling to come, but the maid almost dragged him up.
“What have you got there?” asked Miss Ludolph, with a reassuring smile.
“Something for Miss Ludolph,” stammered the boy, looking very much embarrassed.
Christine carefully opened the parcel and then exclaimed with delight: “Strawberries, as I live! the very ambrosia of the gods. Papa sent them, did he not?”
“No,” said the boy, hanging his head.
“Who did, then?” said Christine, looking at him keenly.
He shuffled uneasily, but made no answer.
“Come, I insist on knowing,” she cried, her wilful spirit and curiosity both aroused.
The boy was pale and frightened, and she was mentally taking notes of his face. But he said, doggedly, “I can’t tell.”
“But I say you must. Don’t you know that I am Miss Ludolph?”
“I don’t care what you do to me,” said the little fellow, beginning to cry, “I won’t tell.”
“Why won’t you tell, my boy?” said Christine, cunningly, in a wheedling tone of voice.
Before he knew it, the frightened, bewildered boy fell into the trap, and he sobbed, “Because Mr. Fleet told me not to, and I wouldn’t disobey him to save my life.”
A look of surprise, and then a broad smile, stole over the young girl’s face—at the gift, the messenger, and at him who sent it. It was indeed a fresh and unexpected little episode, breaking the monotony of the day—as fresh and pleasing to her as one of the luscious berries so grateful to her parched mouth.
“You need not tell me,” she said, soothingly, “if Mr. Fleet told you not to.”
The boy saw the smile, and in a moment realized that he had been tricked out of the forbidden knowledge.
His little face glowed with honest indignation, and looking straight at Miss Ludolph, with his great eyes flashing through the tears, he said, “You stole that from me.”
Even she colored a little and bit her lip under the merited charge. But all this made him all the more interesting as an art study, and she was now sketching away rapidly. She coolly replied, however, “You don’t know the world very well yet, my little man.”
The boy said nothing, but stood regarding her with his unnaturally large eyes filled with anger, reproach, and wonder.
“Oh,” thought Christine, “if I could only paint that expression!”
“You seem a great friend of Mr. Fleet,” she said, studying and sketching him as if he had been an inanimate object.
The boy made no answer.
“Perhaps you do not know that I am a friend—friendly,” she added, correcting herself, “to Mr. Fleet also.”
“Mr. Fleet never likes
