"Czika knows you," she said. "You are very kind. You love the poor; the poor love you."
"A declaration of love!" said Oldenburg, who had remained seated at the table; "how many have you had, doctor, this week? Doctor, you are a dangerous man, and I shall see myself compelled to forbid you the house?"
"Why are you not always here?" asked Czika, turning her large eyes from the baron upon Oswald. "Czika will sit by you near the great water; Czika will gather flowers for you on the heath. Why are you not always here?"
"He cannot be always here, Czika," said the baron, "but he will come very often. Won't you, doctor?"
The door to the anteroom opened, and Mrs. Muller, or Thusnelda, as the baron called her, looked in.
"I cannot--ah! there she is! Where have you been, darling doll? Come, I will put you a little to rights. How you look again!--quite covered with heather, as usual; what are the gentlemen to think?"
With these words the matron led the child out of the room.
"You must know that there is a strong attachment between the two," said the baron. "My old nurse has had many blooming children who have all died young. Other women's hearts often grow hard under such calamities; hers has remained soft, and now she loves the Czika as if she were her first-born. But that is just as if a dove had hatched a falcon. Czika's determination to enjoy unbounded liberty causes the old lady ten times every day infinite trouble and despair. And then, another difficulty. Thusnelda is very pious, and Czika has--horribile dictu--no religion whatever, unless it be some mysterious worship of the stars, which she performs at night, when she steals away from her couch and dances in the moonlight on the beach, as Thusnelda swears she has seen her do, to her own unspeakable horror and disgust. And, to tell the truth, I believe Thusnelda is right. At least I have noticed more than once that if the gypsies have any object of worship it is the sun, the moon, and the stars."
"Have you often had opportunity in your travels to come in contact with this interesting race?"
"Oh yes!" said the baron, "even into very close contact, especially once in Hungary--now twelve years ago."