"My beautiful mamma has been crying, because she is a bird and can't fly--" said the child to Josepha with sorrowful sympathy. "But you can't fly either--nor I till we are angels--then we can!" He spread out his little arms like wings as if he longed to soar upward and away, but an attack of coughing made him sink back upon his pillows.
The husband and wife looked at each other with the same sorrowful anxiety.
The countess bent over the little bed as if she would fain stifle with kisses the cough that racked the little chest.
"Mamma, it doesn't hurt--you must not cry," said the boy, consolingly. "There is a spider inside of my breast which tickles me--so I have to cough. But it will spin a big, big net of silver threads like those on the Christmas tree which will reach to Heaven, then I'll climb up on it!"
The countess could scarcely control her emotion. Freyer drew her hand through his arm and led her out into the dewy morning.
"You are so anxious about our secret and yet, if I were not conscientious enough to help you guard it, you would betray yourself every moment, you are imprudent with the child, it is not for my own interest, but yours that I warn you. Do not allow your newly awakened maternal love to destroy your self-control in the boy's presence. Do not let him call you 'Mamma.' Poor mother--indeed I understand how this wounds you--but--it must be one thing or the other. If you cannot--or will not be a mother to the child--you must renounce this name."
She bowed her head. "You are as cruel as ever, though you are right! How can I maintain my self-control, when I hear such words from the child? What a child he is! Whenever I come, I marvel at his intellectual progress! If only it is natural, if only it is not the omen of an early death!"
Freyer pitied her anxiety,
"It is merely because the child is reared in solitude, associating solely with two sorrowing people, Josepha and myself; it is natural that his young soul should develop into a graver and more thoughtful character than other children," he said, consolingly.
They had gone out upon a dilapidated balcony, overgrown with vines and bushes. It was a beautiful morning, but the surrounding woods and the mouldering autumn leaves were white with hoar frost. Freyer wrapped the shivering woman in a cloak which he had taken with him. Under the cold breath of the bright fall morning, and her husband's cheering words, she gradually grew calm and regained her composure.