-looked at Anna, and shook her head mournfully. The
young girl's lips quivered, and she pressed the tears back when she
saw no purchaser had been found for her labour. Gotleib saw and felt
with the most intense sympathy all that was passing. He lingered yet
longer--he made encouraging remarks to the sick mother, and, at
length, ventured to approach the table, and gazed with admiration on
the beautiful flowers, while his brain was busy in devising how he
was to make them the medium of conveying aid to the suffering mother
and daughter. He turned to the faithful Bettina, who clung to those
whom she served in their hard poverty--he told her that if she would
follow him he would find a purchaser for the pretty flowers. Anna
cast upon him a look of tearful smiling gratitude, and her simple,
"I thank you," as she held out her hand to him, bound him as with a
magnetic chain to her being. Bettina thought the Herr Doctor was a
most generous man, for he more than doubled the paltry sum she asked
for the flowers; though she did not consider it necessary to mention
the fact to Anna, she merely stated to her that she had found a
purchaser for as many flowers as she chose to make.

But Gotleib! what an Eden those flowers made of his chamber! with
what a joy he returned to it after hours of absence; it seemed as if
they brought him into contact with the sphere of a beloved
existence. He examined them with delight, and could not avoid
covering them with kisses. Never was patient visited or watched over
more attentively than was Madame Hendrickson; and, as the mother
revived, the daughter seemed to feel new life. Light beamed from her
soft eyes, and oftentimes Gotleib thought that the roses that
bloomed in her delicate face were far more beautiful and bright than
those that grew under her light and skilful touch.

For him she seemed to feel an earnest trustful gratitude. She never
concealed her glad recognition of his coming; she was too pure, and
innocent, and good, to think it necessary to conceal anything. And
Gotleib's visits were so pleasant, they grew longer and longer--for
he and Madame Hendrickson were of the same religious faith--and he
had a peculiar faculty for consoling her. Gotleib spoke of the other
world with such a definite perception of its existences and modes of
being, that the dying woman never wearied of listening to him. The
high and true faith of the good Gotleib opened to him a world of
beauty, which he poured