Violet looked round and saw the troubled expression in Mrs. Schroder’s face, and laughed as she laid her head caressingly in her friend’s lap.

“I have frightened you with my talk,” she said.  “I believe the hot air in the room bewildered my senses and set me dreaming.  Yes, Harry and Ernest are brothers, and I believe they will always work together and for each other.  I have no business with forebodings, this laughing, sunny day.  The March sun is melting the icicles, and they came clattering down upon me, as I was in the yard, with a happy, twinkling, childish laugh.  There are spring sounds all about, water melting and dripping everywhere, full of joy.  I am the last person, dear mother Schroder, to make you feel sad.”

Violet got up quickly, and busied herself about the room:  filled the canary’s cup with water, drew out the table, and made all the usual preparations necessary for dinner, talking all the time gayly, till she had dispersed all the clouds on Mrs. Schroder’s brow, and then turned to go away.

“You will stay and see Harry and Ernest?” asked Mrs. Schroder.  “They have gone to make the last arrangements.”

“Not now,” said Violet.  “They will like to be alone with you.  I will see Ernest to bid him good-bye.”

II.

Two years passed away.  At the end of this time Mrs. Schroder died.  They had passed on, as years go, slowly and quickly.  Sometimes, as a carriage takes us through narrow city-streets, and we look in at the windows we are passing, we wonder at the close life that is going on behind them, and we say to ourselves, “How slow the life must be within those confined walls!” At other times, when our own life is cramped or jarred by circumstances, we look with envy on the happy family-circles we see smiling within, and have a fancy that the roses have fallen to others, and we only have the thorns.  There are full years, and there are years of famine, just as there come moments to all that seem like a life-time, and lives that hurry themselves away in a passing of the pendulum.  It is of no use to shake the hour-glass; yet, when we are counting upon time, the sands hurry down like snow-flakes.

It was true, as Violet had foreboded, that Harry missed Ernest.  He went heavily about his work, and the house seemed silent without him.  Harry confessed this sadly to Violet, when his brother had been gone about a year.  They had heard from Ernest in Florence, that he was getting on well.  He had found occupation in the workshop of a famous sculptor, and had time besides to carry out some of his own designs.

“He writes me,” said Harry, “that he will be able now to support himself, and that he does not need my help.  Do you know, Violet, that takes the life out of me?  I feel as if I had nothing to work for.  I always felt a pride in working for Ernest, because I thought he was fitted for something better.  Violet, it saddens me to think he can do without me.  I go to my daily work; I lift my hammer and let it fall; but it is all mechanically; there is no vital force in the blow.  It is hard to live without him.”