Leila Gerngross had no private nursing, she was under the immediate supervision of Fräulein von Mylendonk and the physicians. Sister Berta too went in and out of her room, and it was she who gave the young people news of the result of their attention. The little one, in her hopeless and circumscribed state, was as pleased as a child with the strangers’ greeting. The pot stood at her bedside, she caressed it with eyes and hands, saw that it was kept watered, and even in her severest fits of coughing rested her tortured gaze upon it. Likewise the parents, retired Major Gerngross and wife, were touched and pleased; and since it was impossible, for them, as complete strangers, to guess the givers, Fräulein Schildknecht could not⁠—she confessed it⁠—refrain from revealing the cousins’ identity. She transmitted the desire of the whole family that they should come and receive the thanks due their gift; and thus, on the next day but one, the deaconess ushered the two on tiptoe into Leila’s apartment.