nature which must render it easy for you to understand me; for,
Countess----"

"Call me Cordula," interrupted the girl in a tone of friendly entreaty.
"Why should I deny that I am fond of you? and at the risk of making you
vain, I will betray----"

"Well?" asked Els eagerly.

"That the splendid old leech described you to me exactly as I had
imagined you," was the reply. You were one of those, he said, whose mere
presence beside a sick-bed was as good as medicine, and so you are; and,
dear Jungfrau Els, this salutary medicine benefits me."

"If I am to dispense with the 'Countess,'" replied the other, "you must
spare me the 'Jungfrau.' Nursing you will give me all the more pleasure
on account of the warm gratitude----"

"Never mind that," interrupted Cordula. "But please look at the bandage,
beneath which the flesh burns and aches more than is necessary, and then
go on with your explanation."

Els examined the countess's arm, and then applied a household remedy
whose use she had learned from the wife of Herr Pfinzing, her Aunt
Christine, who was familiar with the healing art. It relieved the pain,
and when Cordula told her so, Els went on with her explanation. "When
all these blows fell upon me, they at first seemed, indeed, unprecedented
and scarcely possible to endure. When afterwards my Wolff's unhappy deed
was added, I felt as though I were standing in a dense, dark mist, where
each step forwards must lead me into a stifling morass or over a