The lights shone brightly, and joy beamed from every eye.
The Professor had brought some books for Martella, but had not been fortunate in his selections. There were children's books among them, and these Martella quietly laid aside.
Bertha had sent her a dress, Annette had contributed some furs, and Johanna had sent her an elegantly bound Bible.
"I see already," said Martella, "that naught but good things are showered down on me. Let them come. God grant that the day may arrive when I, too, can bestow gifts. But now let us be happy," she said, turning to Ernst. "When we are alone together in the wild-woods, let us remember how lovely it is here. Look at the Christmas-tree. It was out in the cold and was freezing; but now they have brought it into the warm room, and decked it with lights and all sorts of pretty gifts. And thus was I, too, out of doors and forgotten; but now I am better off; the tree is dead, but I--" Richard grasped my hand in silence, and softly whispered:
"Don't interrupt her. Always let her finish what she has begun this way. When the bird singing on the tree observes that the wanderer is looking up to it with grateful eyes, it flies away."
Martella tried on her furs, stroked them with her hand, and then lit the lights on a little Christmas-tree on which were hanging some large stockings--the first she had ever knit.
"Come along," she said to Ernst, "let us go to Rothfuss; and, Richard, you had better come with us, too, and help us sing."
Carrying the burning tree in her hand, and accompanied by Ernst and Richard, she went, singing on her way, to the room in which Rothfuss lay.
"You are the first person," she said to Rothfuss, "to whom I can give something. I only knit them; the wool was given me by my mother."
"Oh!" exclaimed Rothfuss, "no wizard can do what is impossible. Our Lord makes the wool grow on the sheep; but shearing the sheep, spinning the wool, and knitting the stockings we have to do for ourselves."