satisfied in their
presence. He felt no visions of eternity as he looked into their
friendly faces.

Sometimes hope almost died out. But his trust in God seemed to
forbid the death of this sweet hope. Often he said, "the good God
would not have created this intense desire in one so wholly
dependent upon Him, were he not intending to satisfy it." At all
events, he thought--"If the maiden is not upon earth, she is in
heaven." So he worked and waited patiently.

The wintry winds were howling, as it were, a wild requiem over the
lordly ruins of the crime-stained castle of Heidelberg. Cold, and
bitter, and clear was the starry night, when the weary Gotleib
issued out of the Herr professor's warm house to answer the late
call of a sick woman. Gotleib looked up into those illimitable
depths where earths and suns hang suspended, to appeal to the
material perceptions of man that this is not the alone world--the
alone existence. The silent bright stars comforted the earth-wearied
heart in which the day's toil had dimmed the spirit's perception.
Gotleib stepped on bravely through the frosty darkness, and said
hopefully to himself,

"There is yet another world--another life than this."

And now he stood before the house in which his services were needed.
He entered a chamber, whose bare poverty reminded him of his student
days. But far sadder was cold poverty here, for a lady lay on a hard
couch before the scantily furnished grate, and her hollow cough, and
the oozing blood that saturated her white handkerchief, rendered all
words unnecessary.

A young girl, with blanched cheek and tearless eye of agony, knelt
by the wan sufferer. Gotleib felt himself in the sphere of his
life's use; cold and fatigue were alike gone. The sick and almost
dying woman seemed to revive under his touch--it was as if strength
flowed from the physician into the patient. His very presence
diffused an air of hope and comfort through the desolate apartment,
and the kind serving-girl, Bettina, who had guided him to the humble
lodging, seconded all his active efforts to produce warmth and
comfort, and soon returned with one of his prescriptions--an
abundance of fuel for the almost exhausted grate. The cheerful blaze
threw its strong light upon the young girl, who at first knelt in
hopeless grief beside her dying mother.

What was it that thrilled the heart of Gotleib, as he looked upon
this young maiden? Was it her beauty? No! he had seen others more