“This is what I was afraid of,” said Violet.  “I was afraid he would think he could do without us.  But he cannot do without you.”

“Say that he cannot do without us” said Harry; “for he needs you, as I need you, and the question is, with which the need is greater.”

Violet turned red and pale, and said,—­

“We cannot answer that question yet.”

After Mrs. Schroder died, it was sad enough in the old rooms.  In the daytime, when Harry was away at his work, Violet would go up-stairs and put all things in order, and make them look as nearly as possible as they did when the mother was there.  Harry came to pass his evenings with Violet.

A few days after his mother’s death, he said to Violet,—­

“Is it not time for you to tell me that it is I who need you more than Ernest?  He writes very happily now.  He is succeeding; he has an order for his statue.  He writes and thinks of nothing else but what he will create,—­of the ideas that have been waiting for an expression.  I am a carpenter still, I shall never be more, and my work will always be less and lower than my love.  Could you be satisfied with him?  He has attained now, Ernest has, what he was looking for; and have I not a right to my reward?”

The tears tumbled from Violet’s eyes.

“Dear, noble Harry!  I am not ready for you yet.  I do believe he is above us both, and satisfied to be above us both; but I am not ready yet.”

A day or two afterwards, Harry brought Violet a letter from Italy.  It was from an artist friend of Ernest’s, whose wife and mother had kindly received him into their home.  Carlo wrote now that Ernest had been taken very ill.  They thought him recovering, but he was still very low, and his mind depressed, and he continued scarcely conscious of those around him.  He talked wildly, and begged that his home friends would come to him; and though his new Italian friends promised him all that kindness could give, Carlo wrote to ask if it were not possible for his brother or his mother to come out.  He had been working very hard, was just finishing an order that had occupied him the last year, and he had overtasked his mind as well as his body.

“You will go to him!” exclaimed Violet, when she had read the letter.

“If nothing better can be done,” answered Harry.  “Only yesterday I made a contract for work with a hard master.  It would be difficult to break it; but I will do it gladly, if there is nothing better to be done.”

“You mean that you would like to have me go to Ernest,” said Violet.

“Will you go?” asked Harry.  “That will be the very best thing.”

Aunt Martha broke in here.  She had been sitting quietly at the other side of the table, as usual, apparently engrossed with her knitting.

“You do not mean to send Violet to Italy, and to take care of Ernest?” she exclaimed.  “What are you thinking of?  I would never consent to Violet’s going alone; it would not be proper.”