"Twenty-three!"
"Twenty-three years; yes, yes, I know that, twenty-three years--you have not grown old, you are still young and fair."
Again she looked at Oswald, not with the careful look of shy examination, but openly and joyously, as an old grandmother looks upon her grandchild by her side. Suddenly she rose, went up to Oswald, and putting her withered, trembling hands on his head, she said slowly and solemnly, in a voice which did not seem to be hers, but to belong to another world: "The Lord bless thee and preserve thee, Oscar!" Then she sat down again on her low chair and began her knitting once more, busily, busily, that the needles sang, and she nodded her gray head and smiled so happy, as if a voice, which she alone could hear, was telling her an old, long-lost fairy tale of wondrous beauty about youth and love and the songs of nightingales.
CHAPTER XXI.
It began to darken in the low room; the needles of the old woman were still clicking busily; the cuckoo clock in the corner was ticking louder and louder in the deep silence, and Oswald was still sitting by the open window, his head leaning on his hand, as in a dream.
The rolling of a vehicle which came up the village street aroused him. A light open carriage, with two horses, stopped at the cottage door; a man stepped out lightly and entered the room.
"Good evening," said a dear, rather decided voice. "Doctor Stein?--very glad to make your acquaintance--my name is Braun. Bruno told me I would find the Good Samaritan here--how is our patient?--ah, there in the bed?--what do you say, my good woman, could you get us a light, while Doctor Stein has the kindness to tell me all he knows about the case?"
Oswald described what he had seen as well as he could.
"I thought so," said Doctor Braun; "it is an attack of epilepsy. Has your son ever had an attack before?" he asked the old woman, who was coming back, protecting a thin tallow candle with her hand, so that only a faint gleam fell upon her wrinkled face.
"He is not my son, and his wife was not my daughter," said Mother Claus, placing the candle on a settee near the bed; "but his children are my dear grandchildren."