Chapter XI: In the Riviera

"My God, I thank Thee who hast made
The earth so bright,
So full of splendour and of joy,
Beauty, and light;
So many glorious things are here,
Noble and right."

More than four years had elapsed since Frida had left her home in the Black Forest. April sunshine was lighting up the grey olive woods and glistening on the dark-green glossy leaves of the orange-trees at Cannes, and playing on the deep-blue waters of the Mediterranean there.

Some of these beams fell also round the heads of two young girls as they sat under the shade of a palm tree in a lovely garden there belonging to the Villa des Rosiers, where they were living. A lovely scene was before their eyes. In front of them, like gems in the deep-blue sea, were the isles of St. Marguerite and St. Honorat, and to the west were the beautiful Estrelle Mountains. Around them bloomed masses of lovely roses, and the little yellow and white noisettes climbed up the various tall trees in the garden, and flung their wealth of flowers in festoons down to the ground.

The two girls gazed in silence for some minutes at the lovely scene. Then the youngest of the two, a dark-eyed, golden-haired girl, said, addressing her companion, "Is it not lovely, Adeline? The whole of nature seems to be rejoicing."

"Yes, indeed," answered her companion. "And I am sure I owe much to the glorious sunshine, for, by God's blessing, it has been the means of restoring my health. I am quite well now, and the doctor says I may safely winter in England next season. Won't it be delightful, Frida, to be back in dear old England once more?"

"Ah! you forget, Adeline, that I do not know the land of your birth, though I quite believe it was my mother's birthplace as well, and perhaps my own also. I do often long to see it, and fancy if I were once there I might meet with some of my own people. But then again, how could I, on a mere chance, make up my mind to leave my kind friends in the Forest entirely? It is long since I have heard of them. Do you know that I left my little Bible with them? I had taught Elsie and Hans to read it, and they promised to go on reading it aloud as I used to do to the wood-cutters on Sunday evenings. It is wonderful how God's Word has been blessed to souls in the Forest. And, Adeline, have I told you how kind your friend Herr Mueller has been about Hans? He got him to go twice a week to Dringenstadt, and has been teaching him to play on the violin. He says he has real talent, and if only he had the means to obtain a good musical education, would become a really celebrated performer."

"Yes, Frida," replied her friend; "I know more about all that than you do. Herr Mueller has been most kind, and taken much trouble with Hans; but it is my own dear, kind father who pays him for so doing, and tells no one, for he says we should 'not let our left hand know what our right hand doeth.'"

A silence succeeded, broken only by the noise of the small waves of the tideless Mediterranean at their feet.

Then Frida spoke, a look of firm resolution on her face. "Adeline," she said, "your father and mother are the kindest of people, and God will reward them. This morning they told me that they mean to leave this place in a couple of weeks, and return by slow stages to England; and they asked me to accompany you there, and remain with you as your friend and companion as long as I liked. Oh, it was a kind offer, kindly put; but, Adeline, I have refused it."

"Refused it, Frida! what do you mean?" said her friend, starting up. "You don't mean to say you are not coming home with us! Are you going back to live with those people in the little hut in the Forest, after all your education and your love of refined surroundings? Frida, it is not possible; it would be black ingratitude!"

"O Adeline, hush! do not pain me by such words. Listen to me, dear, for one moment, and do not make it more difficult for me to do the right thing. Your parents have given their consent to my plan, and even said they think it is the right plan for me."

"Well, let me hear," said Adeline, in a displeased tone, "what it is you propose to do. Is it your intention really to go back to the Forest and live there?"

"Not exactly that, Adeline. I have thought it all over some time ago, and only waited till your parents spoke to me of going to England to tell them what I thought was my duty to do. And this is what has been settled. If you still wish it, as your parents do, I shall remain here till you leave, and accompany you back to Baden-Baden, where your parents tell me they intend going for a week or so. From there I propose returning to my friends in the Forest, not to live there any more, but for a few days' visit to see them who are so dear to me. After that I shall live with Miss Drechsler. Her sister is dead, and has left her a good deal of money, and she is now going to settle in Dringenstadt, and have a paid companion to reside with her. And, Adeline, that situation she has offered to me."

"Well, Frida," interrupted her friend, "did not I wish you to be my companion? and would not my parents have given you any sum you required?"

"O Adeline dear, hush, I pray of you, and let me finish my story. You _know_ that it is not a question of money; but you are so well, dear, that you do not really _need_ me. You have your parents and friends. Miss Drechsler is alone, and I can never forget all she has done for me. Then I am young, and cannot consent to remain in dependence even on such dear friends as you are. I intend giving lessons in violin-playing at Dringenstadt and its neighbourhood. Miss Drechsler writes she can secure me two or three pupils at once, and she is sure I will soon get more, as the new villas near Dringenstadt are now finished, and have been taken by families. And then, Adeline, living there I shall be near enough to the Forest to carry on the work which I believe God has called me to, in reading to these poor people the words of life. And at Miss Drechsler's I mean to live, as long as she requires me, _unless_ I am claimed by any of my own relations, which, as you know, is a most unlikely event. I believe I am right in the decision I have come to. So once again I pray of you, dear Adeline, not to dissuade me from my purpose. You know how much I love you all, and how grateful I am to you. Only think how ignorant I would have been had not your dear parents taken me and got me educated, as if I had been their own child. Oh, I can never, never forget all that you have done for me!"

Adeline's warm heart was touched, and her good sense convinced her, in spite of her dislike to the plan, that her friend was right. "Well, Frida," she said, after a minute or two's silence, "if you feel it really to be your duty, I can say no more. Only you must promise me that you will come sometimes, say in the summer time, and visit us."

Frida smiled. "That would be charming, Adeline; but we will not speak of that at present. Only say you really think I am right in the matter. I have not forgotten to ask God's guidance, and you know it is written in the Word of God which we both love so well, 'In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.' But come; we must go now and get ready, for we are to go to-day to the Cap d'Antibes."

And in the delights of that lovely drive, and in strolling amongst the rocks honeycombed till they look almost like lacework, the two friends forgot the evils of the impending separation.

In the meantime Frida was warmly remembered by her friends in the Forest, and their joy when they heard that she was once more coming to live near them was unbounded.

"Ah," said Elsie, as she bent her head over a sweet little year-old girl whom she held on her lap, "now I shall be able to show her my little Gretchen, and she will, I know, sing to her some of the sweet hymns she used to sing to my little Annchen, and she will read to us again, Wilhelm, out of the little brown book which I have taken great care of for her."

"Ay," put in Hans, "and Muetterchen, she will bring her violin, and she and I will play together some of the music you and father love; and she will, I know, be glad to hear that through Sir Richard Stanford and Herr Mueller I am to become a pupil in the Conservatorium of Leipsic. I can hardly believe it is true."

"Ay, my son, thou art a lucky one, and ye owe it all to Frida herself. Was it not she who told Sir Richard about your love of music, and got Herr Mueller to promise to hear you play? Ah! under the good God we owe much to the 'woodland child.'"

And so it fell out that after a few more happy weeks spent at Cannes and Grasse, Frida found herself once more an inmate of Miss Drechsler's pretty little house at Dringenstadt, and able every now and then to visit and help her friends in the Forest.

"Ah, Muetterchen," she said as she threw herself into Elsie's arms, "here I am again your foundling child, come to live near you, and so glad to see you all once more.--And Hans, why, Hans, you look a man now; and oh, I am so pleased you are to go to Leipsic! You must bring down your violin now and then to Miss Drechsler's, and let us play together. I am sure you will be a great musician some day, Hans."

The young man (for such he now was) looked much gratified at his friend's hopeful words, and said, "If I do turn that, I shall owe it all to you, Frida."

But the girl interrupted his speech by saying, "Now, Mutter, let me see little Gretchen;" and next minute she was stooping over the bed where lay the sleeping child--the very bed whence the spirit of the blind child whom she had loved so dearly had taken its flight to the heavenly land.

"What a darling she looks, Elsie! Oh, I am glad God has sent you this little treasure! She will cheer you when Hans has gone away and her father is all day in the Forest."

"Yes," said Elsie, "she is indeed a gift from God; and you, Frida, must teach her, as you taught her parents and Anna, the 'way of life.' And O Frida, thou must go down to the Dorf, for all the people there are so eager to see thee once more. And now that thou hast grown a young lady, they all wonder if thou still beest like the woodland child, and wilt care about the like of them, or if perchance thou hast forgotten them."

"Forgotten them! O Elsie, how could they think so? Could I ever forget how they and you gave of their little pittance to maintain the child found in the Black Forest, and how you all lavished kindness on her who had neither father nor mother to care for her? I must go at once and ask them what I have done that they should have thought so badly of me even for a minute. Don't you know, Mutter, that I have given up the going to England to live with Miss Drechsler at Dringenstadt, in order that I may often see my dear friends in the Forest; and that shall be my life-work, unless"--and here the girl looked sad--"any of my own friends find me out and claim me."

"Hast had any clue to them, Frida?" asked Elsie.

"Alas, no!" said the girl, "none whatever; and yet I have seen a great number of people during these few years. And I have always worn my necklace, which, being such a peculiar one, might have attracted attention and led to the discovery of my parentage; but except one Englishman, whom I met at the Stanfords', who said I reminded him of some one whom he had seen, there has been nothing to lead me to suppose that any one thought of me except as a friend of the Stanfords. But, Elsie, though I am not discontented, still at times there is the old yearning for my own people. But God knows best, and I am not going to waste my life in useless longings. I have got five pupils in Dringenstadt already, and several more applications, and next week I begin my life-work as a teacher of the violin.--Don't you envy me, Hans?"

"That is what I do, Fraeulein Frida," said Hans. Somehow as he looked at the fair young lady the old familiar name of Frida seemed too familiar to use. Frida turned quickly round on him as he uttered the word "Fraeulein."

"Why, Hans--for I will not call thee Herr--to whom did you speak? There is no Fraeulein here--just your old sister playmate Frida; never let me hear you address me again by such a title. Art thou not my brother Hans, the son of my dear friends Elsie and Wilhelm?" and a merry laugh scattered Hans's new-born shyness.

And to the end of their lives Frida and Hans remained as brother and sister, each rejoicing in the success of the other in life; and in after years they had many a laugh over the day that Hans began to think that he must call his sister friend, the companion of his childhood, his instructor in much that was good, by the stiff title of Fraeulein Frida.

Ere Frida left the hut that day, they all knelt together and thanked God for past mercies, and it was Elsie's voice that in faltering accents prayed that Frida might still be used in the Forest to lead many to the knowledge of Christ Jesus through the reading of the Word of God.