"Gundel's right; I must say, I didn't think you were so handsome. But, somehow, you don't look healthy; you must eat more; why, you hardly eat anything."
A grateful smile was Irma only reply.
"Do you know what I'd like to have been?"
"What?"
"Your father."
Irma answered him with a silent inclination of the head. Her father's spirit had been invoked, and it seemed as if he were speaking to her through the lips of this poor, simple-minded man, who continued:
"God forgive me, but I can't help feeling, once in a while, as if you had dropped down from heaven, and had neither father nor mother; and to-day you look so weak that my eyes fill with tears whenever I look at you. Now, do eat a bit!"
He went on chattering as confusedly as if he had been drinking too much, but the refrain was always the same: "Now do eat something!"
To please the good old man, Irma forced herself to do so.