“How so?” exclaimed Moida, who had quick ears, and was a mortal foe to anything like mere sentimentality. “Are not birds created for our pleasure? And you take such care of yours! Why, I’m sure he is quite as happy as if he were flying about in the groves, hunting here and there for food, chased by other birds, and journeying hundreds of miles to find a warm climate in winter; whereas you give your pet plenty to eat—I sometimes think too much (Moida was economical)—and whenever it is cold your room is turned into a hot-house to please him.”
“Ah! but, Moida dear,” answered Walburga, “he has no playmate, no other little bird to love; and what is life without love?”
“Well, he loves you, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, and very much. But that is not the kind of love I mean. He has no mate to sing to. I am sure, in the song he is giving us now, he is sighing and pining for some other pretty bird whom he might kiss and caress and woo.”
“Well, I do declare!” exclaimed Moida, bursting into a laugh. Then, suddenly becoming grave: “But, no, no, I mustn’t laugh. I agree with you: love is everything, and Ulrich is my nightingale. Why, every letter he writes to me is a sweet song of love.”
For several minutes after Moida uttered these words Walburga remained silent. They had awakened in her breast longings which had better have slept for ever. But we cannot escape from ourselves; and she was born with a nature full of tenderness and sympathy. It made her yearn for something which she might call all her own, something to serve and cherish and suffer for. Home! home!—this was the secret craving of Walburga’s soul. But, alas! she had barely the glimmer of a hope that this happiness would ever be hers; and even good Eckhart’s words, which she now repeated to herself, did not bring her the usual comfort.
The poor girl, too, was an orphan; her brother was away from her, and a day would come when Moida would fly off into Ulrich’s arms. “And, oh! then I’ll be lonely indeed,” she sighed.
While Walburga was thus musing on her fate Moida took up her zither,[[47]] and, seating herself by the open window, sang in a rich contralto voice one of the old Volkslied, beginning:
“Ach. wie ist’s möglich dann,
Das ich dich lassen kann!