"What is it that you cannot bear any longer, Leonora?" exclaimed her father, surprised.
"To sit here and prepare lint while the whole world is astir, while every heart is swelling with patriotism and warlike enthusiasm! And I cannot do any thing, I cannot join in the universal exultation—I can do nothing but prepare lint! Father, it is heart-rending, and I cannot bear it!"
"Must not I bear it?" asked her father in a tremulous voice. "Must not I sit still behind the stove, while all my old comrades are taking up arms and marching into the field? My right leg was buried at Jena, and I must limp about now as a miserable cripple; I cannot even take revenge for the disgrace of Jena; I cannot even pay the French for my leg by cutting off the heads of some of their accursed soldiers. I am a cripple, while others are hastening into the field! When I must bear that, a girl like you ought assuredly not to complain."
"Father," said Leonora, with flashing eyes, "do not despise me because I am a girl! Did you not tell me of the heroic women of Spain and the Tyrol, and of their glorious deeds? Did you not tell me that, by their intrepid patriotism, they had set a sublime example to the men. and that by their influence their country was to be saved? Was not the heroine of Saragossa a woman? Did not women and girls fight like heroes in the gorges of the Tyrol?"
"Yes, that is true," exclaimed her father, smiling, "but then they were Spanish and Tyrolese girls. They have fire in their veins, and love their country with an undying patriotism."
"Ah, one need not be born in the South to have warm blood," exclaimed Leonora, ardently, "It is not the sun that gives love of country, and patriotic hearts may throb even under the snow." "Have you such a heart, Leonora?" asked her father, casting on her a long and searching look.
"Father," she said, pressing her hands on her bosom, "there is something burning here like fire; and at times when I hear how all are rallying round the flag—and how the warlike enthusiasm is pervading the whole country, I feel as if the blood would burst from my heart and head. It is true I am no Spanish girl, but I am a Prussian girl!"
"Ah, I would you were a Prussian boy!" sighed her father, shaking his head. "If you were, I believe you would look well in the ranks of the volunteers; they would not likely reject the young soldier of eighteen."
"I am quite tall and strong, although I am but a girl," exclaimed Leonora, with flashing eyes; "I have seen among the soldiers who started yesterday many volunteers who were a great deal shorter and slighter than I am."
"But, at all events, they had shorter hair and a stronger voice than you have," laughed her father.