XXX

“A pity no birds are singing,” Frederick said one day to Miss Burns, who had opened his bedroom window wide.

“Yes,” said Miss Burns, “it is a pity.”

“Because,” Frederick went on, “you say it is already greening on the banks of Lake Hanover.”

“What does that mean—­’greening’?” asked Miss Burns, who did not know the German word he had used.  He laughed.

“It means spring is coming, and spring without the singing of birds is a deaf and dumb spring.”

“Come to England.  There’s where you hear birds.”

“You come to Germany, Miss Burns.  There’s where you hear birds,” Frederick mimicked his friend’s drawl.

When the time came for him to sit up for a while, he refused.

“I don’t want to get out of bed.  I feel too comfortable lying here,” he declared.

Soon after the fever left him, he ceased to feel ill, and for the last week they had been bringing him books, entertaining him with stories and anecdotes of the neighbourhood, and reading the papers to him, all in moderation, of course.  They divined his wishes from his eyes.  His microscope was put beside his bed, and he set seriously to work to examine specimens from his own body, an occupation that brought many jests down on him.  The horror of his illness had turned into a diversion, a pleasant subject of study.

It was not until he had left his bed and was sitting in a comfortable chair wrapped in blankets that he inquired whether a letter had not come from his parents.  Miss Burns told him his father had written and recounted those things in his letter which she knew would please Frederick and ease his mind.  She was astonished to hear the pale convalescent say: 

“I am convinced poor Angele took her own life.  Well,” he continued, “I have suffered what I had to suffer; but I will not reject the hand that I feel is graciously extended towards me.  By that I mean,” he added, thinking from the expression in Miss Burns’s eyes that she did not understand him, “that for a’ that and a’ that, I am glad to be restored to life and confidence in life.”

One day, while Miss Burns was telling of some eminent men in different countries with whom she had become acquainted, mild complaints escaped her, showing she had suffered disenchantments.

“In a year,” she said, “I am going back to England, to some village, and devote myself to the education of neglected children.  The sculptor’s profession does not satisfy me.”

“How would you like this, Miss Burns,” said the convalescent, with a frank, roguish smile, “wouldn’t you like to educate a rather difficult big child?”

Peter and Eva had agreed not to mention Ingigerd Hahlstroem’s name.  But one day Frederick handed Miss Burns a piece of paper with a verse written in lead pencil in a trembling hand.

“To whom does this refer?” he asked.