laughed, so that Christina's cheeks tingled as she emerged from the
turret into another vaulted room. "Here she is," quoth the brother;
"now will she make thee quite well."

It was a very bare and desolate room, with no hangings to the rough
stone walls, and scarcely any furniture, except a great carved
bedstead, one wooden chair, a table, and some stools. On the bare
floor, in front of the fire, her arm under her head, and a profusion
of long hair falling round her like flax from a distaff, lay wearily
a little figure, beside whom Sir Eberhard was kneeling on one knee.

"Here is my sisterling," said he, looking up to the newcomer. "They
say you burgher women have ways of healing the sick. Look at her.
Think you you can heal her?"

In an excess of dumb shyness Ermentrude half rose, and effectually
hindered any observations on her looks by hiding her face away upon
her brother's knee. It was the gesture of a child of five years old,
but Ermentrude's length of limb forbade Christina to suppose her less
than fourteen or fifteen. "What, wilt not look at her?" he said,
trying to raise her head; and then, holding out one of her wasted,
feverish hands to Christina, he again asked, with a wistfulness that
had a strange effect from the large, tall man, almost ten years her
elder, "Canst thou cure her, maiden?"

"I am no doctor, sir," replied Christina; "but I could, at least,
make her more comfortable. The stone is too hard for her."

"I will not go away; I want the fire," murmured the sick girl,
holding out her hands towards it, and shivering.