Now the little girl is a year old, and laughs and smiles at her mother gayly, and the physician said recently, "You may be proud of the child, Baroness. How you have raised her, God only knows. All doctors can learn from a mother. But now think of yourself a little."
And the physician shook his head as he looked at the young woman.
Yes, the air is full of perfume and sunshine, but, in the midst of the charming spring life, Elsa looks like a frail white flower.
She has bathed baby, put on her little embroidered shirt, and wrapped her in a flannel slumber-robe, and now, with a fine towel, wipes the last drops from the tender pink little feet, and the little neck on which the water drops down from the small golden head. The nurse is meanwhile busy removing the bathing utensils, while Litzi, who is now a big girl, wearing long stockings, stands near her little sister and holding perfectly still, allows her long hair to be pulled.
"Fie, you wild little thing, you will hurt her!" cries Elsa at last, as baby pulls harder and harder, and winds her tiny fist in Litzi's hair.
Then baby throws her head back, shows her four teeth, laughs with all her little body, and finally leans her cheek sleepily against mamma's shoulder.
"Go down-stairs, my Litzi, go to Miss Sidney; baby wishes to go to sleep," whispers Elsa to her big daughter, whereupon Litzi goes away on tip-toes.
Dreamily humming a lullaby, Elsa cradles the child in her arms, and then lays it down in its pretty white bed. But when she thinks it asleep, it opens its blue eyes, and stretching out its arms, murmurs something which, with a vivid imagination, one can declare to be "Papa."
"Did you hear him come sooner than I, baby?" says Elsa, while Garzin, sitting on the edge of the bed, strokes the child's head until she closes her eyes. There she lies, her hair full of golden lights, the unusually long, black lashes resting on the round cheeks, lengthened by their own shadow, the full little mouth half open, like the calyx of a red flower, one fat little arm thrown up over its head.
"She is pretty, my little one, is she not?" says Elsa proudly, as she sees the quiet smile with which her husband watches the child. "And the doctor thinks I need have no more anxiety about her."