On Angel's Wings

Every one knew little Violet. She sat always in a small window which projected out over the street, and her purple frock and pale face were looked for and recognized by almost every passer-by.

She had sat in that curious turret-shaped window for four years—in winter, in spring, in summer, in autumn. Other children made snow men and pelted snowballs in the street beneath, while she looked on from above and laughed and clapped her hands. In the spring the little ones went off by the score and gathered yellow and purple crocuses, of which not a few found their way into Violet's lap, or bloomed again in the vases which stood on the sills of the old-fashioned eight-sided window. She loved to have those flowers, and took them from the children's hands with her brightest and most grateful smile. Later on they brought her violets, sweet wood-violets, and trailing ground-ivy; but for these flowers she now had no smile, only tears, which gathered and multiplied, and which would, despite all her efforts, run down her purple dress in large, bright drops. For was not she herself called Violet? and had not some one, not so long ago, often whispered this word to her in a voice which seemed for ever in her ears?—

"My own sweet Violet, lay thy head on mother's breast and rest thee a while. My little Violet is sweeter to me than all the flowers in the town."

And now that Violet had no mother, she could scarcely bear to look at the purple blossoms which they brought to her in bunches; and yet she put them aside, and, when they were withered, treasured them all in "mother's Bible," which lay always on a little table beside her.

In summer, in the gap at the far end of the street, between the church and the fountain, she could always catch a glimpse of the hills—the beautiful green hills, covered with trees to the very top, and from whence, in the autumn, the children returned laden with nuts, baskets and satchels and boxes full; and though Violet did not eat nuts, they made tea-things out of the shells, and had doll tea-parties in the old turret-window.

A year ago she had been a very happy little girl; and although even then she could not walk, nor run, nor jump about like other children, still she never fretted about it. She had some one always with her who made the long days pass so happily, that she never stopped to ask herself why she was unlike the others, or why all the neighbours as they went by looked up at her with such pity in their eyes.

Only once for a few moments she had seemed to understand something about it, when little Fritz Adler, her great friend, going by riding on a stick with a horse's head attached to it, shrieked up to her from the street beneath in great pride,—

"Ha, ha, Violet! look at me how I can prance; thou couldst not do so if thou triedst."

"I could," she shouted. "By-and-by, when I can run like thee, I will ride too."

"No, no, thou never wilt," screamed Fritz, giving his wooden horse a lash with his leather whip. "I wanted to give thee this horse, this very one; Ella had bought thee this very whip; but mother said 'No,' it would be folly to give thee such a present."