She beheld the young man with wondering eyes, and her heart beat violently for the first time in seventeen years at the sight of his fine figure. She had been often moved to tears as he lay on the bed of sickness, insensible, almost lifeless; deeply affected at the pallid appearance of his fine manly features struggling with death, as she imagined, she had watched him with the tender anxiety of a pious mind; but now she felt he was quite a different object to behold. His eye was reanimated by a beautiful expression, and it struck Barbelle, young though she was, that she had never seen the like before. His hair fell no longer in wild disorder over his forehead; it now hung down his neck arranged with care and combed into neat curls. The colour had returned to his cheeks, and his lips were as fresh as cherries on the festivals of Peter and Paul; and how well did his embroidered silk jacket become him, and the broad white collar which he had put on over his dress! But the little girl could not comprehend why he was so much occupied with a certain white and blue silk scarf; she even thought that he pressed it to his heart and raised it to his lips, full of the devotion which is paid to some esteemed relic. The elderly matron had, in the meantime, satisfied her curiosity in the examination of her guest, and returned to her culinary occupations. "The gentleman looks like a prince," she said, as she gave the mess of oatmeal porridge a stir, "what a jacket he has! no Stuttgardt beau can boast of a finer one. But what is he always doing with that band he holds in his hand? He never ceases to look at it. Perhaps there is a spot of blood on it which he cannot get out?" "No, that's not it!" said Barbelle, who could now look into the room with greater ease. "But do you know, mother, what I think? he looks at it with such ardent eyes, that it must certainly be something from his love."