And
when, on Sundays, Anna went with her parents to church, in the faded
red skirt, neat white body, and black bodice, which had been her
mother's wedding-dress, she heard the boys whisper amongst
themselves about her beauty and sweetness, and casting her eyes down
with timid blushes she did not perceive the jeering smiles of the
other girls who, though not as pretty, were proud that they were
richer and better dressed than the school-teacher's daughter.
But Death, in his inexorable manner, had disturbed this modest
happiness. In a year he took the schoolmaster Detzloff and his wife
from the little house which, to any one else, would have appeared a
pitiful hut, but which, to them, seemed a paradise. In one year Anna
became an orphan; she was entirely alone in the world, and, after
she had given to her dear departed ones the tribute of her sorrows
and tears, she had to arouse herself and create a new future. After
death only, the villagers became aware of the great worth of the
departed, they now admitted to the full the school-teacher's merits,
and were anxious to pay to the daughter the debt owing to the
father. As he had died partly from starvation, sorrow, and work,
they wished to prove themselves generous to his daughter, and
preserve her from the want and misery which had caused the death of
her parents.
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