The old woman again paused, as if to suppress her emotion.
“Of whom?” enquired Gottlob in a low tone, also in much agitation.
“Of the fair Fraulein Bertha, the noble Ober-Amtmann’s daughter.”
“You think so, Magdalena?” replied the young man. “Perhaps it maybe a slight shade of a resemblance, caught unconsciously”——
“It is she herself,” exclaimed Magdalena. “It is the same angelic smile—the same beam of innocent brightness athwart her brow! It is she!”
“Perhaps thou art right,” stammered Gottlob, still in much confusion, but evidently well pleased with the species of praise thus bestowed upon his performance. “There is, in truth, more resemblance to the Fraulein Bertha than I had thought.”
Magdalena seemed for a minute lost in her reflection, as if a new and painful idea had struck her; and after giving a long and anxious look at the window, from which the young artist had drawn back upon her entrance, she pressed her hand heavily to her heart, as if to support her in a sudden resolution, and, advancing to the artist’s side, said in an earnest tone, “Young man! thou lovest her!”
“Magdalena! thou knowest not what thou sayest,” cried Gottlob, more harshly than as the wont of his gentle nature.
“Oh! pardon me if I have offended. Condemn me not!” said the excited woman. “But I do entreat you, tell me! Tell me your secret as you would confide it to a mother—to your own mother, Gottlob. It is the purest interest for you—for her—that guides me! I swear it to you! Oh! tell me—is it not so? You love that fair and gentle girl!”
The young man looked at his strange interrogator with some astonishment at her evident agitation. The tears were swelling in her eyes. But without pausing to question the reasons of her emotion—so absorbed is love in its own self—he rose, and took the old woman’s hand.