No one was better pleased with this plan than the invalid himself. He maintained that he had never slept better, nor drank better coffee. When the men had gone, and Gundula also, he seated himself upon a little stool by the window where her sewing machine stood, took up her scissors, stuck her little thimble upon his finger, and plunged into a cosy chat with the mother as she sat at the other window with her sewing. He drew from her the story of her life; and the calm way in which she spoke of her sad lot, the cruelty of her neighbors, and recompense for those trials which she had found in her child, touched the heart of her young listener, and awoke in him a feeling akin to veneration. When at length Gundula came home in the evening, she appeared less constrained, and ventured to ask if his wound hurt him, or should she get some ice to cool the wrappings. To this he would not consent, and his gallant protest evoked a slight flush upon her cheek. When she wished to move her machine into the adjoining room lest its noise disturb him, he would not allow this either, but moved a chair near her, and watched her taper fingers and the delicate contour of her face as she bent over her work. The mother, however, remarked that her patient needed to go to sleep early, sent out the child, dressed the wound freshly with salve, and withdrew to the back room. Outside, in the court, a light shadow had been spying in at the window for an hour past--the poor soul of Heinrich Müller, which was racked by the torments of jealousy, and would not retreat until the young pair, who evidently enjoyed themselves together, were parted once more. That upon this evening, one of the best mediums pursued his vocation without result and failed to call up a single spirit, had its natural explanation in the infatuation which kept this self-declared lady-killer of old a watcher at the window of our simple peasant maid. The melancholy ghost felt no slight relief when upon the following afternoon his lively rival took leave of his excellent nurse and her daughter and departed for the home of his friend. But the joy was of short duration; for the next evening, as soon as the darkness would allow him to take his way unobserved to Ghost Lane, the young doctor appeared at Frau Cordula's house to have his wound dressed. This time the stitches were removed, and a plaster was applied over the cloth with the healing balsam. He had brought a large cornucopia containing a variety of fruits and confections, at which Gundelchen consented to nibble, after much persuasion. She had now thawed completely, and Philip thought he had never heard a prettier laugh from girlish lips than that which greeted the recital of his student pranks. When, at times, the conversation took a more serious turn, Gundelchen took part shyly, asking any number of sensible questions.