"Mother," he heard Rosa say, "sweet mother, I really did see her, you can believe me. She was as beautiful, as beautiful as you. She had hair like yours, when you undo your plaits. And she gave me the Child Jesus to hold. I love it, I love it!" She repeated that several times with great fervour. What nonsense was the child talking? Of whom was she speaking? The schoolmaster drew nearer to the door. Ah--he gave a start--ah, now she, Mrs. Tiralla, was speaking. But he couldn't very well understand what she was saying, she spoke so softly. [Pg 77] And now and then she seemed to be sobbing. He knocked at the door and walked in. Rosa was lying in bed and her mother was sitting on the bed near her. They both stared at him in astonishment, but when he said with a voice that hesitated at first, but then grew firmer, that he felt he couldn't leave without hearing how she was, the child looked pleased. "I'm very well," she answered, with a shy smile. "Very well, thank you, Panje Böhnke." "She's feverish," said her mother. "She fainted the day before yesterday; Marianna came rushing down to tell us. We shall have to send for the doctor if she doesn't get better." "No, no," cried the child, sitting up in bed and looking as though she were going to cry. "I'm not ill, mother darling, I'm not ill." She threw her arms round her mother and pressed her head against her breast. The schoolmaster stepped up to the bed and laid his hand on the child's head. No, _she_ wasn't feverish, but he began to feel so as soon as he came near that beautiful woman. He busied himself with Rosa; what was the matter with her, wouldn't she soon come back to him? Rosa nodded, and then raising her head from her mother's breast, she pushed her tangled hair away from her face, which looked dazzlingly white in spite of the freckles. Even Böhnke, in his agitation, noticed how bright her dull eyes had become. "She dreams so much," said her mother sadly. "She frightens us by screaming aloud in her sleep. And she talks in her sleep as well; Marianna is really terrified. Oh, those awful dreams!" She sighed. But the schoolmaster did not inquire any further into the matter. Little Rosa's dreams did not interest [Pg 78] him in the slightest, all he wanted to do was to give Mrs. Tiralla a proof of his devotion. "Would the Pani like to borrow some of my books?" he inquired. "I shall be very pleased to bring some." And then wishing to give her a hint of how he understood and pitied her, he took heart and added, "If people live such a lonely life as the Pani does, and are so un----" he wanted to say "unhappy," or "so little understood," but he faltered, and his veiled eyes looked longingly at her. He did not know how it was, but he always lost his self-possession when he was near her.