But the most charming thing of all was the way the black eyes, always a trifle downcast, would open suddenly, dart a swift glance around, which seemed to break into lightning-like sparks and then suddenly drop their long lashes again.
Twice only, when Philip directed some playful remark to her, did her red lips break into a smile and a dimple appear in her cheek, showing that behind that modest, almost childlike brow, was a roguish spirit which was only repressed by the consciousness of her lowly position and by considerations of good breeding.
When the mother and daughter sat down to their midday meal other company appeared--first, Master Kospoth, their daily guest, then the young engineer. Both were rejoiced to see such an improvement in the patient; and the friend wished to procure a carriage and convey Philip at once to his own lodgings.
Frau Cordula, however, insisted upon keeping him until the following day. The wound, it is true, had begun to heal; but she herself must renew the bandage several times, and she could not leave her room to visit the patient.
No one was better pleased with this plan than the invalid himself. He maintained that he had never slept better, nor drank better coffee. When the men had gone, and Gundula also, he seated himself upon a little stool by the window where her sewing machine stood, took up her scissors, stuck her little thimble upon his finger, and plunged into a cosy chat with the mother as she sat at the other window with her sewing. He drew from her the story of her life; and the calm way in which she spoke of her sad lot, the cruelty of her neighbors, and recompense for those trials which she had found in her child, touched the heart of her young listener, and awoke in him a feeling akin to veneration. When at length Gundula came home in the evening, she appeared less constrained, and ventured to ask if his wound hurt him, or should she get some ice to cool the wrappings. To this he would not consent, and his gallant protest evoked a slight flush upon her cheek. When she wished to move her machine into the adjoining room lest its noise disturb him, he would not allow this either, but moved a chair near her, and watched her taper fingers and the delicate contour of her face as she bent over her work. The mother, however, remarked that her patient needed to go to sleep early, sent out the child, dressed the wound freshly with salve, and withdrew to the back room.
Outside, in the court, a light shadow had been spying in at the window for an hour past--the poor soul of Heinrich Müller,
which was racked by the torments of jealousy, and would not retreat until the young pair, who evidently enjoyed themselves together, were parted once more. That upon this evening, one of the best mediums pursued his vocation without result and failed to call up a single spirit, had its natural explanation in the infatuation which kept this self-declared lady-killer of old a watcher at the window of our simple peasant maid.
The melancholy ghost felt no slight
