Every evening after Dora had learned all her lessons for school, while her aunt in utter silence knitted or nodded, the child climbed up to her little attic room; and before she closed her tiny window, she leaned out into the night to see whether the stars were shining, and looking down upon her from the high heavens.  Five there were always up there just above her head; they stood close together and Dora looked at them so often and so steadily, that she began to consider them as her own special property—­or rather as friends who came every night and twinkled down into her heart, to tell her that she was not utterly alone.  One night the idea came to her that these bright stars were loving messengers, who brought her kisses and caresses from her dear parents.  And from these heavenly messengers the lonely child gained nightly comfort when she climbed to her little chamber in the roof, with her feeble candle for her only companion.  She sent her prayers up to heaven through the tiny window, and received full assurance in return, that her Father in heaven saw her, and would not forsake her.  Her father had told her that God would always help those who trusted him and prayed to him, and she had no fear.

And so the long hot summer passed, and Autumn came.  Then followed a long, long winter with its cold and darkness; such cold that Dora often thought that even the hot summer days were better, for she no longer dared to open the window to look for her friends the stars, and often she could hardly get to sleep, it was so cold in the little room, under the roof.  At last the Spring rolled round again, and the days passed one like another, in the quiet dwelling of Uncle Titus.  Dora worked harder than ever on the big shirts, for she had learned to sew so well, that she had to help the seamstress in earnest now.  When the hot days came again, something happened; and now Aunt Ninette had reason enough to lament.  Uncle Titus had an attack of dizziness, and the doctor was sent for.

“I suppose it is thirty years since you went beyond the limits of the town of Karlsruhe, and in all that time you have never left your desk except to eat and sleep.  Am I right?” asked the physician, after he had looked steadily at Uncle Titus and tapped him a little here and there.

There was no denying that the doctor had stated the case truly.

“Very well,” he said, “now off with you! go away at once; to-day rather than to-morrow.  Go to Switzerland.  Go to the fresh mountain air; that is all the medicine you need.  Don’t go too high up, but stay there six weeks at least.  Have you any preference as to the place?  No?  Well, set yourself to thinking and I will do the same, and to-morrow I shall call again to find you ready for the journey.”

With this off started the doctor, but Aunt Ninette would not let him escape so easily.  She followed close at his heels with a whole torrent of questions, which she asked over and over again, and she would have an answer.  The doctor had fairly deserved this attack, by his astounding prescription.  His little game of snapping it suddenly upon them, and then quickly making his escape, had not succeeded; he lost three times as much time outside the door as if he had staid quietly in the room.  When at last Aunt Ninette returned to her husband, there he sat at his desk again, writing as usual!