"But, mother," said the young one, "you had better go and dress yourself, while I remain here, for perhaps the gentleman may awake when you are putting your things on."
"You are right again, girl," replied the mother, and, leaving the breakfast on the table, retired to adorn her person. Her daughter opened the window to the fresh morning air, for the purpose, according to her usual practice, of feeding her pigeons, which were assembled before the house waiting for their accustomed meal; larks and other little birds saluting her in full chirping chorus, partook also of her bounty, which the young girl enjoyed with innocent pleasure.
At this moment the curtains of the bed were opened, when the head of a handsome young man looked out; we need not say it was Albert von Sturmfeder.
A slight colour, the first messenger of returning health, played on his cheeks; his look was as brilliant as ever, and his arm felt as powerful. He surveyed his situation in astonishment; the room, with its furniture, were strangers to him; everything about him was a riddle. Who had bandaged his head? who had put him in this bed? His position appeared to him like that of one who had passed a jovial night with his companions, and, having lost his senses, awoke in some out-of-the-way place.
He observed the girl at the window for some time. He could not keep his eyes off her, as she was the first object he had seen; for the purpose of drawing her attention, he made a rustling noise with the curtains as he threw them further back.
She' started when she heard the noise, and looking round, exhibited, to Albert's astonishment and delight, the beauty of her countenance, now slightly tinged with a blush. His sudden apparition appeared for a moment to deprive her pretty smiling mouth of the power of finding words to welcome the invalid to returning life. She soon collected herself, however, and hastened to the bedside, but immediately after checked her steps, as if she were not quite certain of her patient being really awake, or whether it were proper to be in the room when he returned to his senses.
The young man, observing the embarrassment of this beautiful maiden, was the first to break silence.
"Tell me, where am I? how came I here?" asked Albert. "To whom belongs this house, in which, it appears, I awake out of a long sleep?"
"Are you really in your senses again?" cried she, clasping her hands for joy. "Ah! thank God, who would ever have thought it? But you look at one as if it were true, though you have been so long ill as to make us very fearful and anxious about you."
"Have I been ill?" inquired Albert, who scarcely understood the dialect of the Swabian girl. "I have only been a few hours without consciousness?"