
The Old Mam'selle's Secret
CHAPTER I
"IN Heaven's name, Hellwig, where are you going?"
"Straight to X-----, if you will kindly permit me," was the half-defiant, half-scornful answer.
"But the road certainly never led over such a hill as this! You're out of your senses, Hellwig. Halloo! Stop. I want to get out. I've no fancy for being upset and having my bones broken. Will you have the goodness to stop?"
 I upset you? I? It would be the first time in my life," were the words the other probably meant to say, but a terrific crash interrupted and effectually silenced the speaker. The snorting and stamping of a horse were beard for a moment, then the animal, having regained hi 3 footing, dashed madly away.
"Well, this is an upset!" muttered the first speaker, sitting upright at last on the wet, newly plowed field. "Hi! Hellwig! Boehm! Are you still alive?"
"Yes I am," called Hellwig, not very far away, as he groped about on the damp ground, searching for his wig. Every trace of arrogance and derision had vanished from the feeble voice. The third victim, too, was now heard trying, amid groans and curses, to raise himself on all-fours—his corpulent figure was irresistibly attracted towards mother earth. At last the whole trio regained the attitude which marks man as the noblest creature in God's wide universe, and, once more on their feet, began to ponder over what had happened, and what must be done. In the first place, the light vehicle in which the gentlemen had left their homes in X-----that morning, on a hunting excursion, was lying overturned, with its four wheels pointing skyward, on the side of the little hill that had caused the accident; the hoof-beats of the                      runaway horse had died away some time before, and dense darkness shrouded the consequences of Hellwig's self-confidence.
"Well, we can't stay here all night, that's certain. Let's go on," said Hellwig, at last, in an encouraging tone.
"Yes, yes, take command again," grumbled his fat friend, secretly assuring himself that it was not one of his ribs, but the shattered fragments of his beautiful meerschaum pipe, that made the uncanny grating sound near the region of his heart. "Take command, pray do—it's highly becoming in you, after coming within an ace of murdering two fathers of families by your abominable carelessness. No, I certainly won't spend the night in this den of lions, but see that you discover some way out of it. Ten horses sha'n't drag me from this spot without a light. I'm sinking in mire, and this air will give me rheumatism for the next six months—that I must make up my mind to bear, and you're entirely to blame for it, Hellwig. But I won't be crazy enough to risk breaking my limbs or putting out my eyes in the thousand holes and ditches of this confounded neighborhood."
"Don't be a fool, doctor!" said the third member of the party. "You can't stand here like a mile-stone, first on one leg and then on the other, while Hellwig and I grope our way to the town and get help. I noticed long ago that this famous charioteer was driving too much toward the left. I'll answer for it that we'll get to the road if we turn to the right and keep straight on across this plowed field. So come along with no more ado. Think of your wife and children, who are perhaps weeping and wailing at this very moment because you haven't come home to supper."
The fat man grumbled something about "miserable management," but left his post and groped his way along with the others. It was a terribly uncomfortable piece of business. Great clods of earth stuck to their hunting-boots, and every now and then a foot, feeling about unsteadily, would plunge into some deep puddle, splashing the muddy water like a fountain over the coats and faces of the three unfortunate pedestrians. Still, they reached the high-road without any serious mischances, and then strode onward bravely and cheerily. Even the doctor gradually regained his good nature, and hummed in a horrible bass voice, "Afoot we merrily tramp along!"
Near the little town a light glimmered through the Darkness—it came rapidly nearer to the three gentlemen, and Hellwig recognized, under the bright rays from the lantern, the broad, laughing face of his own servant Heinrich.
"Good gracious!   Herr Hellwig, is it really you?" cried the man.    "My mistress thinks you are lying as dead as a door-nail just outside of the town."
"How does my wife know that we met with an accident?"
"My, sir, a wagon full of players came into town tonight"—the worthy fellow always gave all actors, jugglers, rope-dancers, and the like the one term of "players" —"and when the driver stopped before the Lion there was our old horse trotting behind as if he belonged to them. The landlord of the Lion knows him well enough, and brought him home at once. Oh, what a scare the madame had! She sent me off with a lantern instantly, and Frederica is making some camomile tea."
"Camomile tea? H'm—I think a glass of mulled wine, or at least some good hot beer, would be more to the purpose."
"Yes, that's what I thought, too, Herr Hellwig; but you know how my mistress—"
''Very well, Heinrich, very well.    Now go in front with the lantern.    Let us get home as fast as we can."
When they reached the market-place, the three companions in misfortune separated with a silent shake of the hand; one to dutifully drink his camomile tea, the other with the depressing assurance that curtain lectures were impending at home. Their respective wives never approved the "noble love of the chase" which animated their lords, and now their sole means of propitiation, the spoils of their sport, lay crushed under the overthrown 'vehicle, while the first sight of their miry clothes would transform welcoming embraces into voluble expressions of wrath.
The next morning red placards, pasted at every street corner, announced the arrival of the famous juggler Orlowska, and a young woman went from house to house offering tickets for the performance. She was very beautiful, with magnificent, fair hair and a tall, stately figure, full of grace and dignity; but the charming face was pale —"white as death," people said—and on rare occasions when she lifted the drooping lids, fringed with long, golden lashes, the expression of the gentle, tearful, dark-gray eyes was strangely touching.
At last she reached Hellwig's house, the handsomest on the market-place.
"Madame," said Heinrich, holding open the door of a room on the ground floor by keeping his hand on the brightly polished brass handle, "the player's wife is outside."
"What does she want?" called a woman's harsh voice from within.
"Her husband is going to play tomorrow, and she would like to sell you a ticket."
"We are respectable Christian people here, and have no money to throw away on such foolery—send her off, Heinrich."
The man shut the door again. Then he scratched his ear awkwardly, and with a troubled face, for the "player's wife" must have heard every word. She stood a moment as if on the point of sinking on the floor before him, a flitting blush crimsoned her pale cheeks, and a deep sigh escaped her lips.
Just at that moment a little window opening upon the passage was softly raised, and a man's voice was heard asking in suppressed tones for a ticket. It was given, and the hand receiving it slipped a thaler into the young wife's fingers. Before she could lift her eyes the window closed again and, a thick green curtain hung in heavy folds behind the panes. Heinrich, with a smile, now made a clumsy bow and opened the street-door, and the young woman tottered out to pursue her toilsome way.
The servant picked up a pair of nicely blacked boots, which he had set down on her appearance, and entered his master's room, said master appearing in broad day light to be a little, oldish man, whose thin, pale face wore an expression of infinite kindness.                           
"Oh, Herr Hellwig," said Heinrich, while putting the boots in their usual place, "you really did a very kind act in buying that ticket. The poor thing looked so sad. I pity her, though her husband does earn his bread so dishonorably. He'll have no luck here, mind that, Herr Hellwig."
"Why not, Heinrich?"
"Because our horse, which had just come from an accident, was sticking like a burr to his wagon when he drove into the town—that's no good sign. Mark what I say, Herr Hellwig, those people will have no luck here!"
As his master made no answer to this prophecy, he shook his head and went out into the hall, stopping a moment to straighten the mat before the door of his stern mistress's room. The stranger had pushed it awry with her foot.
CHAPTER II
THE town hall was crowded with spectators, and others were still pouring upstairs. Heinrich was standing where the throng was densest, scolding bitterly, and trying to get breathing space by violent thrusts with his elbows and secret attacks on his neighbor's corns.
"Good gracious, if my mistress only knew that, there would be a tempest!" he whispered to an acquaintance, pointing with a grin toward one of the raised seats extending along the side of the hall where sat Herr Hellwig, accompanied by one of his former comrades in misery, Dr. Boehm. "My master will have to go to confession early tomorrow morning."
The seats were so closely crowded that the worthy fellow had much difficulty in discovering his slender master. The programme promised many new and marvelous things, and concluded as follows:
"Madame d'Orlowska will appear as an Amazon. Six soldiers, with loaded guns, will fire at her, and with one thrust of her sword she will cut the six bullets in the air."
The inhabitants of X------had come mainly to witness this performance. The beautiful young wife had awakened general interest, and everybody wanted to see how she would look when the six guns were aimed at her. But her husband's previous feats had won the applause of the audience. He was, according to women's phrase, an "interesting" man. Of middle height, with a lithe, slender figure, waving brown hair, regular though pallid features, expressive eyes, and rare grace of movement he was rendered still more attractive by the peculiar accent of his German, which marked him as a son of the unhappy, dismembered land of Poland. But all this was instantly forgotten when the six soldiers, under the command of a servant, marched into the hall. A murmur, like the roar of the surf, ran through the throng—followed by a death-like silence.
The Pole went to a table and made up the cartridges 33 the presence of the audience, tapping each bullet with a hammer, that all might be assured that there was no deception. Then he handed one to each soldier, who was ordered to load his musket in full sight of the spectators.
At last the juggler rang a bell, and his wife, coming slowly forward from behind a screen, stopped in front of the soldiers. She was a lovely vision, her left arm was covered by a shield, and her right hand grasped a sword. A white robe, confined at the hips by the gleaming silver scales of her armor, fell in heavy folds at her feet, and her magnificent bust was covered by a glittering breastplate. Yet the flash of her armor paled in contrast to the radiant golden waves of her superb hair, which fell from beneath her helmet almost to the edge of her robe.
The pale, sad face, with its mournful eyes, was turned directly toward the muzzles of the death-dealing weapons. Not an eyelash stirred, not the faintest movement in the folds of her robe could be detected—she stood like a statue. The final word of command echoed through the death-like stillness of the hall; the six shots crashed on the air as though from a single gun—the sword whizzed, the twelve half-bullets rattled upon the floor.
For a moment the Amazon's tall form still stood motionless; the smoke of the powder concealed her features, even her armor only glimmered faintly through the dense cloud Then she suddenly staggered, shield and sword fell clanking on the floor, her right hand clutched convulsively at the empty air for support, and, with the heart-rending cry, "Oh, God, I am wounded!" she fell into the arms of her husband. He bore her behind the screen, and then rushed back like a madman to question the soldiers.
They had all received strict orders to bite off the balls, while loading their muskets, and hold them in their mouths—this was the simple method of performing the trick. But one of them, a stupid country dolt, bewildered by the sight of the vast crowd, became confused at the critical moment. When the five others, at the juggler's passionate command, instantly took the bullets from their mouths, he, to his consternation, produced only a little power—his ball had pierced the hapless woman. At this discovery, the miserable husband, frantic with grief and despair, struck the unintentional criminal in the face.
The wildest uproar instantly followed. Several ladies fainted, and numberless voices called for a physician. But Dr. Boehm, who had realized the accident before anyone else, was already behind the screen, examining the wounded actress. When he finally reappeared, his face pale with horror, he whispered to Hellwig:
"There's no possible chance; that beautiful woman must die."
An hour later, the juggler's wife was lying on a bed in the Lion tavern. They had carried her from the hall on a sofa, Heinrich acting as one of the bearers.
" Well, Herr Hellwig, was I right or wrong about that luckless horse of ours ?" he asked, while passing his master, big tears rolling down his cheeks as he spoke.
The woman was lying perfectly still, with closed eyes. Her loosened hair fell in heavy tresses over the white pillows and the edge of the bed, the golden ends curling on the dark carpet. Beside her knelt the juggler, his head, on which her hand rested, buried amid the folds of the coverlid.
"Is Fay asleep?" whispered the woman, almost inaudibly, struggling to open her eyes. The juggler raised his head.
"Yes," he murmured, his lips drawn with pain as he clasped her white hand tenderly in his own. "The landlord's daughter has taken her into her own room; she is sleeping there in a little white bed—our child is kindly cared for, Meta, my sweet love."
The woman gazed with an indescribable look of agony at her husband, whose eyes glowed with the wild light of despair.
"Iasko—I am dying!" she sighed.
The juggler sunk down on the floor, writhing as if enduring the most intense physical suffering.
"Meta! Meta!" he cried, frantically, "do not leave me! Thou art the light of my dark pathway! Thou art the angel who hast thrust the thorns of my despised profession into thine heart, that they might not pierce mine! Meta, how shall I live if thou art no longer beside me with thy watchful eyes and thy heart full of speechless love? How shall I live if I never more can hear thy bewitching voice, nor see thy heavenly smile? How shall I live, with the torturing knowledge that I seized thee in my arms only to doom thee to, unutterable woe? Oh, God above us, surely Thou canst not plunge me into this hell!" He broke into low sobbing. "I will atone for the wrong I have done thee, Meta; I will work for thee, support thee by hard, honest toil, till my fingers bleed—labor with ax and spade. We will seek some quiet nook where we can live together in happiness and contentment"—he tore the spangled black velvet mantle from his shoulders—"off with this trash! Never again shall it touch me. Stay with me, Meta, we will begin a new life?"
A sad smile hovered around the dying woman's lips. She struggled to lift her head; he passed his arm under it and with his left hand pressed her face wildly to his breast.
"Iasko, calm yourself—be a man!" she moaned; her head fell back lifelessly, but once more she opened her dim eyes as if the passing soul was making one last desperate effort to cling to the dying body. The lips, so soon to molder in the dust, must speak once more, the heart could not stop beating and sink under the earth with the anxieties of maternal love unuttered.
"Thou art unjust to thyself, Iasko," she said after a pause, during which she had gathered the last remnants of her failing strength—"thou hast not made me miserable—I have been loved as few wives are; these years of happy love outweigh a long, long life. I knew that I was wedding the juggler, and left my father's house, from which I was cast out on account of my love, to walk through life by thy side. If shadows darkened my path, 1 alone was to blame; I had overvalued my own strength, and sometimes cowered beneath the contempt bestowed upon my calling. Iasko," she went on in a still more gentle tone, "a man is uplifted above the narrow-minded views of others by the thought that his art, whatever it may be, is ennobling—but a woman shrinks under the stings of scorn. Oh, Iasko, anxiety for Fay is making my last hour a terrible agony. I implore thee, let the child know nothing of thy profession."
Clasping his hand, she pressed it closely. Her whole soul was in the beautiful eyes, so soon to be darkened by the death-struggle.
"I know how hard a thing I am asking, Iasko," she continued, beseechingly. "Part from Fay—place her with kind, simple people; let her grow up amid the influences of quiet, peaceful family life. Oh, promise me this, my beloved husband!"
In a voice stifled with tears the juggler gave his promise. A terrible night followed; the death-agony seemed as if it would never end. But when the rosy light of dawn streamed through the window it fell on a fair, lifeless form, whose features bore no trace of the last hours of suffering. Orlowska had flung himself upon the rigid body, and it needed the strength of several men to drag him from it into another room.
On the afternoon of the third day following, an immense crowd attended the burial of the "player's wife." Pitying hands had covered the coffin with flowers, and the most prominent men in the city—among them Hellwig—walked in the funeral procession. As the first shovelful of earth fell heavily upon the coffin, the juggler tottered and would have fallen, but Hellwig, who was standing by his side, supported him and helped him back to the tavern, where he remained alone for several hours with the grief-stricken man, who had hitherto repelled all expressions of sympathy and even attempted suicide. Those passing the door of the room had sometimes heard the convulsive sobs of the wretched man, or outbursts of passionate tenderness in answer to the sweet, unconscious prattle of a child. It was a terrible contrast—the tear-choked voice and the laughing silvery accents of the little one.
CHAPTER III
It was late in the evening.    A sharp November wind was sweeping through the streets, and the first snowflakes were falling on the roofs, the pavements, and the dark, new-made grave of the Pole's young wife.
The table was laid in the Hellwigs' sitting room. The service was of heavy silver, and the handsome pattern of the white damask table-cloth shone like satin. The lamp was standing on a little round sofa-table, behind which sat Frau Hellwig knitting a long woolen stocking. She was a tall, broad-shouldered woman, a little over forty. Perhaps, when illumined by the light of youth, her face might have been considered beautiful; the profile had the classic outlines required by the laws of regular beauty, but it could never have been charming. Spite of the large, well-formed eyes and brilliant complexion, it must always have lacked the attraction with which a noble soul irradiates the features. The countenance could never have become so stony if it had been animated by any warmth of feeling. How could the gray eyes have glittered with alight so icy-cold, if her youth had known the blissful exchange of emotions, the countless excitements and experiences life arouses in every susceptible nature. Bands of dark-brown hair were brushed plainly over a forehead which still retained its fairness, the rest of the head was concealed under a snowy-white muslin cap. This cap, and a black dress made in the simplest fashion, with tight sleeves and narrow white cuffs at the wrists, lent a somewhat puritanical aspect to her whole figure.
From time to time a side door opened, and an old cook's wrinkled face peered inquiringly through the crack.
"Not yet, Frederica!" Frau Hellwig always said, in the same monotonous voice, without glancing up; but her needles flew faster, and a peculiarly irritated expression hovered around her thin lips. The old cook was perfectly aware of "madame's" impatience—she liked to aggravate the feeling—and at last exclaimed, in a very piteous tone:
"Oh, dear! where can the master be? The roast will be ruined, and when shall I get through my work today?"
This remark brought a stern rebuke. Frau Hellwig never allowed her servants to express their opinions unasked, but Frederica returned to the kitchen very well satisfied, spite of the reproof, for she had seen the effect of her speech in the deep furrow that had appeared between her mistress's eyebrows.
At last the door opened, as the full, deep peal of the bell echoed through the house.
"Oh, what a pretty ting-a-ling ?" cried a child's clear voice outside.
Frau Hellwig put the stocking she was knitting into a little basket by her side, and rose. Surprise and perplexity had effaced the expression of impatience, as she looked intently across the lamp, toward the door. Somebody outside was rubbing his feet on the mat—that was her husband. Directly after he entered the room and approached his wife with somewhat faltering steps, carrying in his arms a little girl about four years old.
"I've brought something home to you, dear Brigitta," he said, appealingly; but stopped instantly as he met his wife's glance.
"Well ?" she asked, without moving.
"I bring you a poor child."
"Whose is it?" she interrupted, coldly.
"The daughter of the unfortunate Pole, who lost his young wife in so terrible a way. Dear Brigitta, pray receive the little one kindly."
"Only for this one night, of course?"
"No. I solemnly promised the father that the child should be brought up in my house."
He uttered the words in a quick, firm tone—sooner or later they must be spoken.
A bright flush suddenly crimsoned his wife's fair face, and a contemptuous expression hovered around her lips. Taking a step forward from her former place, she tapped her forehead with her forefinger with a gesture of indescribable malice, saying:
"I'm afraid Hellwig, that you're not quite right in your mind." Her voice still retained its cold composure, doubly offensive at this moment. "To expect such a thing from me, me? To bring a player's brat under the roof I strive to make a temple of the Lord—indicates something more than—folly."
Hellwig started back, an angry light sparkled in his pleasant eyes.
"You have made a grave error, Hellwig," she continued. "I shall not receive into my house this child of sin —the child of a lost woman, so visibly overtaken by the righteous judgment of God."
"Indeed—is that your opinion, Brigitta? Then I will ask you of what sin your brother was guilty that he was killed by a chance shot while hunting? He was seeking his own amusement, this poor woman died in the performance of a painful duty."
The flush faded from Frau Hellwig's cheeks, and she suddenly became deathly pale. She remained silent a moment, her eyes rested with an astonished, watchful gaze upon her husband, who was displaying such unwonted energy in her presence.
Meantime, the little girl, whom Hellwig had placed on the floor, had pulled off her pink hood, revealing a pretty little head covered with brown curls. The little cloak, too, was dropped. Hard indeed must have been Frau Hellwig's heart not to have held out her arms and clasped the child in a loving embrace. Was she totally blind to the indescribable charm of the tiny figure tripping about the room on the prettiest little feet, and gazing in childish amazement at her new surroundings? The round, rosy shoulders were in most becoming contrast to the light-blue woolen frock, bordered with dainty embroidery—perhaps the last work of her mother's hands, now rigid in death.
But the elegance of the dress, the careless fall of the curls on brow and neck, and the grace of the little one's movements merely irritated the lady.
"I won't have this will-o'-the-wisp two hours about me," she said, suddenly, without a word in reply to her husband's startling rebuke. "The forward little creature, with her tangled hair and bare shoulders, does not suit our quiet, decorous household—it would be throwing our doors wide open to frivolity and dissipation. Surely, Hellwig, you will not fling this apple of discord into our midst, but see that the child is taken back to where she belongs."
She opened the door leading into the kitchen and called the cook.
"Frederica, put on this child's clothes," she said, pointing to the little cloak and hood still lying on the floor.
"Go back to your kitchen at once!" cried Hellwig, in loud, angry tones, waving his hand toward the door.
The bewildered servant vanished.
"You force me to extremities by your own harshness and cruelty, Brigitta!" exclaimed the irritated husband. "So attribute it to yourself and your own prejudices, if I now say to you what otherwise would never have crossed my lips. Who owns the house, which you falsely say you have tried to make a temple to the Lord? I! Brigitta, you too came to this house a poor orphan—in the course of years you have forgotten it—and alas! the more zealously you have toiled at this so-called temple, the more you have striven to have the words of God, Christian love, and humility on your lips, the more arrogant and hard-hearted have you become. This house is mine, I pay for the food we eat, and I must positively declare that the child shall stay where she is. If your heart is too narrow and loveless to have a mother's affection for the poor little thing, I at least require my wife, in accordance with my will, to extend the necessary protection to the child. If you do not wish to lose your dignity in the eyes of our servants give the needful orders for the little girl's reception—or I shall do so myself."
Not another word escaped Frau Hellwig's blanched lips. Any other woman, in such a moment of complete helplessness, would have turned to the last weapon of the weaker sex, tears; but their sweet relief seemed unknown to those cold eyes. Her utter silence, her icy composure, seemed to envelop her whole person like a coat of mail and exerted a benumbing influence on all who surrounded her. Taking up a basket of keys, she silently left the room. Sighing heavily, Hellwig took the child by the hand and walked up and down the room with her. He had fought a terrible battle to secure the deserted little creature a home in his house, and had mortally offended his wife. Never, never—he well knew—would she forgive the bitter truths he had just uttered. She was implacable,
CHAPTER IV                               
Meantime Frederica placed on the table a little tin plate, a child's knife, fork and spoon, and a clean napkin. The bell rang outside, and directly after Heinrich opened the door, admitting a little boy about seven years old.
"Good-evening, papa!" cried the child, shaking the snow-flakes from his fur cap.
"Good-evening, my boy," he replied.  "Well, did you have a good time at your little friend's?" "Yes, but that stupid Heinrich came for me far too early."
"Your mamma wished him to go, my child.    Come here, Nathanael, see this little girl—her name is Fay—" "Nonsense!  How came her name to be 'Fay?' It's no name at all."
"Her mother called her so, Nathaneal," he answered, gently, "her real name is Felicitas. Isn't she a poor, pretty little thing? Her mother was buried today; she will live with us now, and you will love her like a little sister, won't you?"
"No, papa; I don't want a little sister." The boy was the very image of his mother. He had handsome features and a remarkably clear, rosy complexion, but he had a disagreeable habit of resting his chin on his breast and looking from under his eyebrows with his large eyes, which gave him a peculiarly sly, crafty expression. His head sunk at this moment even lower than usual, he raised his right elbow in an attitude of defiance and looked spitefully from beneath it at the little girl.
Fay stood shyly pulling at her little dress; the big boy evidently awed her, but she gradually approached, and, without being frightened by his hostile attitude, seized with beaming eyes the toy sword that hung at his belt. He pushed her angrily away, and ran to his mother, who had just entered.
"I don't want any little sister!" he repeated, whimpering. "Mamma, send that rude little girl away! I want to stay alone with you and papa!"
Frau Hellwig silently shrugged her shoulders and went to her place at the table.
"Say grace, Nathanael," she said in her monotonous voice and clasped her hands. The boy instantly interlocked his little fingers, bowed his head humbly, and repeated a long grace. Under the circumstances this prayer was an abominable profanation of a most beautiful Christian custom.
The master of the house touched no food. The flush of excitement still crimsoned his pale forehead, and while mechanically toying with his fork, his perturbed gaze, wandered restlessly over the sullen faces of his wife and son. But the little girl had an excellent appetite. She carefully put into her pockets some bonbons Hellwig laid beside her plate.
"These are for mamma," she said; "she's very fond of bonbons. Papa brings her great boxes of them."
"You haven't a mamma!" cried Nathanael, crossly.
"Oh, you don't know anything about it," replied the little one, greatly excited. "I have a much prettier mamma than you."
Hellwig cast a timid, startled glance at his wife, and unconsciously raised his hand as if to close the rosy little mouth that had so little knowledge of the way to protect its own interests.
"Have you supplied her with a bed, Brigitta?" he asked, hastily, but in a gentle, pleading tone.
"Yes."
"Where is she to sleep?"
"In Frederica's chamber."
"Wouldn't there be room, at least, for the first few nights—in ours?"
''If you want to have Nathanael's bed taken out of it."
He turned angrily away, and called the servant.
"Frederica, you will have charge of this child at night—be kind to her. She is an orphan, and has been accustomed to the care of a loving mother."
 I won't harm the little girl, Herr Hellwig," replied the old woman, who had evidently been listening, "but I come of respectable parentage who have never had anything to do with players. It would be something, at least, if we knew that her father and mother had been married."
She glanced at Frau Hellwig, doubtless expecting an approving look for her answer, but her mistress was just untying Nathanael's bib, and appeared as though she had neither seen nor heard anything of the whole affair.
"This is too much!" cried Hellwig, indignantly. "Must I learn to-day that there is neither sympathy nor pity in my whole household? Do you think yourself at liberty to be cruel, Frederica, because you are ‘come of respectable parentage'? Well, for your satisfaction you may rest assured that this child's parents were honestly married; but I tell you now that you shall be most severely dealt with if I see that you are unkind to her in any way."
He seemed weary of the strife, rose, and carried the little girl to the cook's room. She willingly allowed herself to be put to bed, and soon fell asleep, after praying in her sweet little voice for papa and mamma, for the kind uncle who would take her back to mamma tomorrow, and for "the tall lady with the cross face."
Late at night Frederica went to bed. She was angry because she had been kept up so long, and moved noisily about the room. Little Felicitas started from her sleep, sat upright, and pushing her curls back from her face cast a frightened glance around the dingy walls and scanty furniture of the small, faintly lighted chamber.
"Mamma, mamma!" she cried, loudly.
"Hush, child, your mother isn't here; go to sleep again!" said the cook crossly, as she went on undressing.
The little girl looked at her in alarm; then she began to cry softly. She was evidently frightened by the strange room.
"There, now, the good-for-nothing creature is going to bawl; that's the finishing stroke! Hush, you player's brat"—she raised her hand threateningly. The frightened child hid her head under the bed-clothes.
"Oh, mamma, dear mamma!" she whispered, "where are you? Take me into your bed—I'm so afraid—I'll be very good and go to sleep at once. I've saved something for you, mamma; I didn't eat them all—Fay has something for you, dear mamma. Or just let me hold your hand and I'll stay in my little bed and—"
"Will you be quiet!" called Frederica, furiously, running to the child's bed. She did not move again, only from time to time the sound of a suppressed sob came from under the bed-clothes
The old cook was sleeping the sleep of the just long before the poor child, with its little heart full of terrified longings, ceased to cry softly for its dead mother.
CHAPTER  V
Hellwig was a merchant. Heir of a considerable fortune, he had increased his property by various commercial enterprises, but failing health compelled him to retire from the business world to the quiet life of his native town. There the name of Hellwig was a prominent one. From time immemorial the family had been highly esteemed, and for generations some office of honor in the place had always been filled by a representative of the respected name. The most beautiful garden outside of the gates, and the handsomest house on the marketplace, had been owned by the family as long as anybody could remember.    The house stood at the corner of the marketplace and a steep street, its stately front projecting in a sweeping curve. Year in and year out snow-white curtains hung behind the window-panes of the two upper stories. Only thrice in a twelvemonth, always a few days before the great festivals, they disappeared, while the rooms were swept and dusted.  Then the huge brazen dragons' heads on the roof, through which the water poured from the gutters down upon the pavement below, and the birds flying by, peered in at the garnered treasures of the old merchant's house, and saw the old-fashioned magnificence of the apartments—the tall cabinets of costly inlaid work, with glittering locks and handles, the rich silk damask covering of the down cushions of sofas and chairs, the long Venetian mirrors built into the walls and reaching from floor to ceiling, and, in the guest chambers, the beds, whose linen exhaled  a strong odor of lavender.
These apartments were not occupied. It had never been the custom of the Hellwig family to rent any portion of their spacious house.
A stately solemn silence had always pervaded the upper stories of the mansion, only interrupted by a brilliant wedding or baptism, and from time to time, in the lapse of the year, by the echoing footsteps of the mistress of the house, who kept her stores of silver, linen, and china here.
Frau Hellwig had come to the house when a child of twelve. The Hellwigs were her relatives, and received her when her parents, dying within a short time of each other, left their children penniless. The young girl had a hard life with her old aunt, a stern, proud woman, and Hellwig, the only son, at first pitied the orphan, a pity which later became converted into love. His mother resolutely opposed his choice, and there were many unpleasant conflicts, but the young man finally had his way and married Brigitta. He had mistaken the girl's sullen silence for maidenly decorum, her coldness of heart for strength of mind, her obstinacy for firmness of character—and marriage shut him out from the paradise he had expected. In a short time the kindly natured man felt crushed beneath the iron hand of a despotic disposition, and, where he had hoped for grateful devotion, suddenly encountered the grossest selfishness.
His wife blessed him with two sons—little Nathanael, and his brother John, eight years older. The latter, when a lad of eleven, had been sent to one of Hellwig's relations, a professor and principal of a large school for boys, near the Rhine.
Such were Hellwig's family relations at the time he took the juggler's child into his house. He had been deeply moved by the terrible event he had witnessed, and could not forget the pleading, unutterably sorrowful expression of the hapless woman, as, standing in his house, she humbly received his thaler. His kind heart ached at the thought that perhaps his home had been the last one where she had been made to feel the sting of the contempt bestowed on her lowly position in life. So, when the Pole told him his dying wife's last request, he hastily offered to take the child himself. Not until he entered the dark street with the unhappy father's last agonizing farewell yet echoing in his ears, the little one, passing her arms closer around his neck, asked, for her mother, did he think of the opposition that probably awaited him at home; but he relied upon the loveliness of the little girl, and, above all, the fact that no daughter had been given to his own marriage. Spite of all his bitter experiences, he yet had no thorough conception of his wife's character, or he would have turned back at once and restored the child to her father's arms. If the relation between Hellwig and his wife had hitherto been anything but warm, since the orphan's entrance into their household granite walls seemed to have arisen between the pair. True, everything in the house pursued its former course. Several times each day the mistress made her customary round of inspection through the whole establishment; her step was not light, and to a sensitive or timid ear there was something most annoying to the nerves in the firm, heavy tread. Her right hand constantly glided over furniture, window-sills, and balusters. The lady had an uncontrollable desire, almost a mania, for passing her large white hand, with its flat finger-tips and broad nails, over everything, and then carefully examining the palm to see if any speck of dust or stray filament of cobweb were sticking to it.
Prayers were still offered, and the voices which praised God's ceaseless love and mercy, and repeated His commandment to love even our enemies, continued to be as monotonous and unfeeling as before. The family assembled at the meals, and on Sundays the husband and wife walked to church side by side. But Frau Hellwig, with iron resolution, avoided accosting her husband, repelled his advances with the curtest brevity of speech, and even managed to always look over or beyond his slight figure. The little intruder also did not exist for her. On the first evening of conflict she had ordered Frederica to provide daily for the child, and had flung into the old cook's room sheets and coverlets for the little bed. Frederica was also told to open, before her mistress, Felicitas's trunk of clothing, which a servant had brought from the Lion, and the dainty little wardrobe, each article scented with delicate perfume, was hung in an open gallery to air. This began and ended her enforced care of the "player's child," and when she returned to the sitting-room she regarded the whole matter as a closed chapter forever. Only once afterward did a spark of interest seem to glimmer in her mind. One day a seamstress was installed in the sitting-room to make two dark dresses for Felicitas of the same plain cut Frau Hellwig wore herself. At the same time she held the struggling child firmly on her lap and toiled with brush, comb, and pomade till the beautiful curls were smooth and straight enough to put into two ugly braids at the back of her head. This woman's hatred of grace and beauty, of everything opposed to her own narrow views, or which belonged to the realm of the ideal, was even stronger than her resolute determination to utterly ignore the child's presence in the house. Hellwig was almost ready to weep when he saw his little darling so disfigured, while his wife, after the sacrifice her hatred of beauty had imperiously required, became, if possible, more repellant to the child than before.
Yet the little one was not to be pitied; she could fly from the spell of those Medusa eyes to a warm heart—Hellwig loved her as if she were his own child. True, he did not find courage to express this affection openly—he had exhausted his fund of energy in the conflict with his wife on the eventful evening when he brought Felicitas home— he watched her unceasingly. Like Nathanael, she had her own special corner in her foster-father's room where she could play with her dolls and lull them to sleep with the little songs she had learned at her own mother's knee.
Nathanael did not go to the public school; he received his instruction, under his father's oversight, from private tutors, and when Felicitas had reached her sixth year, she shared these lessons. As soon as the snow melted and the crocuses and snow-drops bordered the empty black flowerbeds, Hellwig took the children every day out to his large garden; there they studied and played, returning to the house in the marketplace only for their meals. Frau Hellwig rarely entered this garden, she preferred to sit with her knitting in the large, quiet room behind the spotless white curtains falling in regular folds to the floor, and she had a special reason for this preference. One of Hellwig's ancestors had laid out the garden in the old French fashion. The sandstone mythological figures and groups, the size of life, placed here and there, had evidently been executed by a master of the art. True, the light-hued forms stood forth in rather strong contrast against the stiff, dark rows of yew-trees. The charming, but almost wholly undraped form of a Flora, the delicate bare arms and shoulders of a struggling Proserpine, and the nude, muscular figure of her powerful ravisher, could not fail to instantly arrest the eye of any one who entered—and the statues were literally stones of offence in Frau Hellwig's eyes. At first she had imperiously demanded the removal of these "sinful representations of the human form," but Hellwig saved his favorites by referring to his father's will which expressly prohibited the removal of the statues. Thereupon the mistress of the house instantly had a quantity of vines planted at the bases of these mythological apples of discord, and ere long Pluto's grim countenance peered out from beneath a green wig. But one fine morning Heinrich, by his master's orders, and to his own intense delight, uprooted the green parasites from the earth, and since that time Frau Hellwig, for her soul's welfare, and because the statues had been witnesses of her defeat, never entered the garden.   For that very reason it became the real home of little Felicitas.
Behind the tall yews stretched a magnificent lawn. Huge chestnut-trees struck deep root into the flower-strewn turf, and a rippling stream flowed through part of the green plain; a dense growth of hazel bushes bordered its banks, and the little dam, thrown up as a protection against the spring floods, glittered in May with yellow cowslips, while later in the year the rosy blossoms of the field-pinks peered out behind the waving blades of grass.
Felicitas studied unweariedly, and was always remarkably quiet during the lesson-hours. But when, in the afternoon, Hellwig declared study ended, she suddenly seemed completely transformed. Still flushed by mental application, she seemed fairly frantic, intoxicated with liberty; again and again, with uplifted arms, she would bound aimlessly over the turf, as untamed in her careless grace as the wild young steed of the steppes. Then, with the speed of lightning, she would scale the trunk of a tall chestnut-tree, her face, surrounded by masses of her loosened hair, peeping laughingly from among its topmost boughs; or, lying prone on the bank of the stream, with her hands clasped under her head, gaze upward into the green dusk of the feathery leaves swaying gently to and fro, and dream the bright, delusive visions of the world and the future which must ever haunt the brain of a quick-witted child, either from fairy tales or its own powers of imagination. The water in the brook below murmured monotonously, the sunbeams danced on the waves, and glimmered through the dark hazel bushes like half-veiled, mysterious, fiery eyes, bees and beetles buzzed above her, and the butterflies, tired of hovering around the carefully tended exotics in the front garden, found here their promised land, and fearlessly alighted in the cups of the flowers close to the little girl's cheek.
Sometimes white, oddly shaped shining clouds would float over the tops of the trees—then the memory of a strange past would suddenly return to the thoughtful child. Her mother's dress, too, had been white and glittering, the light of the candles had been reflected in the snowy luster of the long, flower-strewn robe that had fallen over her narrow bed. Felicitas still wondered why her mother had had flowers in her hands and had not given her a single one, nor why she had not been allowed to wake her with her kisses, which she had always done every morning, amid mutual jesting, to the child's infinite delight. She did not yet know that the bewitching face that had always bent over her with such passionate love had long been moldering under the earth. Hellwig had never ventured to tell her the truth, for though now, at the end of five years, she no longer wept so bitterly for her parents, nor pleaded so passionately to see them, she still talked of them with touching affection, and relied implicitly on her foster-father's vague promise that someday she should see them again. Nor did she know anything about her father's calling; this had been the juggler's own request, and therefore Hellwig sternly insisted that no one in his household should allude to the child's past life. It did not occur to him that the veil he held so tenderly before her eyes might escape from his hand too soon; he never thought of his own death, yet this terrible specter had long walked noiselessly but surely beside him. He had an incurable disease of the lungs, but, like all consumptives, cherished the firmest hopes of recovery.
Already he was compelled to be conveyed in a wheelchair to his beloved garden, but he believed his to be merely a temporary weakness which did not prevent his making extensive plans for building and traveling in the future. One afternoon Dr. Boehm entered Hellwig's room. The invalid sat at his desk writing—several cushions, pushed into his chair behind and on each side of him, supported his emaciated, drooping figure.
"Halloo!" cried the doctor, shaking his cane at him. "What nonsense is this? Who in the world gave you leave to write? Put down your pen at once."
Hellwig turned—a pleasant smile was hovering around his lips.
"There's another instance of the saying, 'doctor and death come together'," he replied.   " I am writing to my son, to John, about little Fay, and just as you enter the house I, who never in my life had less idea of dying, am letting this sentence fall from my pen." The doctor stooped and read aloud: '"I have great reliance upon your strength of character, my dear John, and would therefore place in your charge unconditionally the child entrusted to my care, in case I should leave this world sooner than—'
''Enough! Not a word more today!" said the physician, putting the half-finished letter in a drawer. Then he hurriedly felt the sick man's pulse and stole a glance at the two round red spots glowing on the prominent cheekbones.
"You are just like a child, Hellwig," he said. "If I turn my back you are certain to commit some great imprudence."
"And you tyrannize over me abominably. But just wait. Next May I'll slip out of your clutches, and you can follow me to Switzerland for aught I care."
A few days later the window of the invalid's bedroom in the Hellwig mansion stood wide open, a pungent odor of musk floated out into the street, and a man in deep mourning went through the town informing all the friends of the family, in the name of the afflicted widow, that Herr Hellwig had departed this life an hour before.
CHAPTER VI
Under the windows hung with green curtains, opening upon the hall, on the very spot where five years before the juggler's beautiful, unhappy wife had borne the pain of deep humiliation, now stood the coffin containing the mortal remains of Hellwig. The earthly husk of the ex-merchant had been surrounded with all the splendor of wealth. Handles of massive silver glittered on the casket, and the head of the corpse rested on a white satin pillow. And, a terrible contrast—around the haggard, emaciated face, freshly cut flowers were exhaling their fragrance—young, innocent lives destined to a premature death, for the decoration of the dead.
Throngs of people, speaking in whispers, went and came noiselessly. The man who lay there had been rich, influential, and very generous—now he was dead. All eyes glanced hastily, timidly, at the pallid, distorted face, but lingered long on the magnificent display of funereal splendor, the last glimmer of earthly pomp.
Felicitas crouched in a dark corner behind several large tubs containing orange-trees and oleanders. She had not been allowed to see her uncle for two days, the death' chamber had been closely shut, and now she knelt on the cold pavement of the hall, gazing at the strange face, from which death had effaced even the expression of infinite kindness. What did the child know of death? She had been with him in his last moments, but never thought that the stream of blood that gushed from his lips must suddenly end everything. His eyes had rested on her with an indescribable expression when she was sent of the room. In the street outside she had run angrily and anxiously to and fro under the open windows of his bedroom. She knew how carefully he protected himself from every draught of air, and now the people in there were so careless. She had wondered that no fire was made in his room in the evening, and in answer to her continual entreaties that she might be allowed to carry the lamp and a cup of tea to her uncle in his chamber, Frederica had angrily exclaimed:
"Are you out of your senses, child, or don't you understand German? He is dead, dead!"
Now she saw him again, so altered that she scarcely knew him, and the child gradually began to comprehend the meaning of death.
Whenever a fresh throng of curious spectators filled the hall, Frederica came in from the kitchen holding the end of her apron to her eyes, and extolled the virtues of the man whom she had so often tried to annoy.
"Just took at that girl!" she interrupted herself angrily, perceiving Felicitas's pale face, with its hot, tearless eyes among the orange-trees. "She doesn't shed a tear. Thankless creature! She can't have a spark of affection in her nature."
"You never loved him, and you are crying, Frederica!" replied the child, in a low tone, and she shrunk still further into her corner.
The hall gradually became empty. Instead of the throngs from the lower classes, who now gathered in the market-place to watch the funeral procession, there were dignified gentlemen in mourning, who after a short pause beside the coffin, went to the sitting room to express their sympathy with the widow. For a few moments the large vaulted hall was pervaded by a silence that might almost have been called solemn, had it not been interrupted, ever and anon, by the murmur of voices in the adjoining room. Suddenly little Felicitas started from her reverie and gazed in terror at the glass door opening into the courtyard. There, behind the panes, appeared a strange vision —her uncle was still lying here with sunken eyes, and an unfamiliar expression around his tightly closed mouth, and yet, there he stood, gazing inquiringly into the deserted hall, once more alive, with the same kindly face, though the head seemed muffled in some odd covering. It seemed almost spectral, when the handle of the door was gently moved, and directly after it noiselessly opened. The apparition appeared on the threshold. Yes, the features were strikingly like Hellwig's but they belonged to a woman—a little old lady, who, richly clad in a by-gone fashion, slowly advanced to the coffin. A dress of heavy black silk, guiltless of a single wrinkle, fitted the spare, angular figure faultlessly; it was cut short enough to show a pair of wonderfully tiny feet, whose tread, however, was somewhat unsteady. Over her forehead curled a profusion of carefully arranged snow-white locks, covered by a transparent black lace kerchief fastened under the chin.
Without noticing the child, who stood motionless, gazing breathlessly at her, the old lady approached the coffin. At sight of the dead face she shrunk back in evident horror, and her left hand, apparently unconsciously, dropped a bouquet of costly flowers on the lifeless breast. For a moment she covered her eyes with her handkerchief, then, deeply agitated, laid her right hand, as if in solemn appeal, upon the cold brow of the corpse.
"Do you know the whole story now, Fritz?" she murmured. "Yes, you do, as your father and mother have long known it. I forgave you, Fritz. You never knew the wrong you were committing! Good-night! Goodnight!"
She clasped the waxen hand of the dead tenderly between both her own, turned from the coffin, and was vanishing as noiselessly as she had come, when the door of the sitting room opened and Frau Hellwig appeared. Her face looked whiter than marble under her black crape cap, but her features were more rigid than ever—the cold eyes did not show the faintest trace of tears. She held in her hand a thick garland of dahlias, which she was evidently about to place as the last "gift of love" upon the coffin.
Her astonished gaze met the old lady's eyes. For a moment both seemed rooted to the spot, but an evil light began to glow in the widow's glance, her upper lip curled slightly, showing one of her white front teeth—there was undying malignity in the expression. The old lady's features also revealed deep emotion; she was apparently struggling against an almost invincible repugnance, but at last she conquered it, and with a gentle, tearful glance at the lifeless form, held out her hand to Frau Hellwig.
"What do you want here, aunt?" asked the widow curtly, entirely ignoring the little lady's movement.
"To give him my blessing," was the gentle answer.
"An infidel's blessing has no power."
"God will hear it. His infinite mercy and love do not regard the empty form if the prayer comes from a sincere heart."
"And a guilt-laden soul!" added Frau Hellwig, with biting contempt.
The old lady drew herself up to her full height.
" Judge not," she began, holding up her forefinger with a threatening gesture"; "but no"—she interrupted herself with indescribable gentleness, glancing toward the dead form, "not another word shall disturb your sacred rest. Farewell, Fritz."
She went slowly back to the courtyard, and disappeared through a door which Felicitas had hitherto always found locked.
"Well, that was high and mighty enough in the old mam'selle," murmured Frederica, who had witnessed the whole scene from her kitchen door.
Frau Hellwig silently shrugged her shoulders, and laid the wreath at the feet of the corpse. She could not yet control her excitement.
Unfamiliar as was any expression of feminine gentleness and tenderness to this woman's features, rigid and immovable as they appeared in their iron sternness, they could become wonderfully alive with hatred and contempt. Whoever had once seen the evil smile which at such moments hovered around the corners of her mouth, could never again trust the repose of that countenance. She bent over her dead husband, apparently to adjust something ; in doing so her hand brushed the old lady's bouquet, which fell over the edge of the coffin and rolled along the floor to Felicitas's feet.
The clock struck three. Several clergymen in their ministerial robes entered the hall, the gentlemen came out of the sitting-room, followed by Nathanael and a tall, slender youth. The widow had telegraphed to her son.  John, and he had arrived that morning to attend the funeral. For a moment little Felicitas forgot her grief, and gazed with childish curiosity at the young man who had been his father's favorite. Was he weeping behind the slender, well-kept hand he had raised to his eyes at the sight of the lifeless form? No; no tears fell, and the child's inexperienced eyes could perceive no sign of emotion on the grave face, save its unwonted pallor.
Nathanael stood beside him. He shed plenty of tears, but his sorrow did not prevent his nudging and whispering to his brother, when he discovered Felicitas in her hiding-place. John's glance followed the direction of his brother's finger, and for the first time he fixed his eyes on the child's face. They were terrible eyes—grave, gloomy, with no light of kindness or affection. In the Bible there was a picture of John the Evangelist, "the disciple whom Jesus loved," a beautiful, gentle face, almost feminine in its outlines. "That's John on the Rhine," the little girl had always said, and her uncle had smiled and nodded assent. But those lovely features, framed by their light locks, bore no resemblance to this head, with its smooth, close-cut hair, and the grave, pale, irregular profile.
"Go away, child; you are in the way here!" he said, sternly, when he saw that preparations were being made to close the coffin.
Felicitas, confused and startled, as if she had done something wrong, left her corner, and, unnoticed by the others, glided into her foster-father's private room.
Now she sobbed bitterly. Never had she been in his way. Again she felt his burning hand stroke his head, and heard his kind, faint voice whisper hoarsely, as he had so often done during the last few days:
"Come, Fay, my child, I am so glad to have you near me."
Hark! What was that hammering outside? The sound echoed harshly through the arched hall, where not one of the throng scarcely ventured to whisper. Felicitas cautiously lifted the green curtain and looked out. Horrible! Her uncle's form had disappeared, the black cover was "laid on his kind face, and would always keep him lying stretched in that stiff position. If he even lifted his hand a little, it would strike against the hard, thick boards. And the man kept on hammering the cover to make it firm, so the hand inside could never lift it, shutting the still form into the darkness of the narrow box, where no one could breathe, and it must be so terrible to stay alone. The child screamed loudly in her fright.
All eyes were turned in surprise toward the window, but Felicitas saw only the large gray ones, whose glance had already so alarmed her. They looked at her reproachfully; she left the window and hid herself behind the big, dark curtain that divided the room. There she crouched on the floor, gazing timidly at the door, which he would certainly soon enter, and drive her with harsh words away.
From her hiding place she did not see the bearers lift the coffin on their shoulders, nor how her uncle left his home forever. She did not see the long, black, gloomy procession that followed the dead man, like the last shadow, on his now completed life-pilgrimage. At the corner of the street a breeze lifted and waved the white satin ribbons that hung from the coffin—was it a farewell greeting from the dead to the deserted child a mother's tender love had snatched from the desolate slough of her father's profession, to ignorantly fling upon a dreary, inhospitable shore?
CHAPTER VII.
THE murmur of voices in the hall had suddenly died way—perfect silence followed. Felicitas heard the house-door shut; but she did not know that the sound was the closing act of the drama enacted in the hall. Yet she dared not quit her hiding-place, but she sat down in the little cushioned arm-chair her uncle had given her last Christmas-eve, and rested her head on her hands, which were clasped on the table before her. Her heart no longer throbbed so anxiously, but the little bent head ached, as thought after thought flashed swiftly through her brain. She was puzzling over the little old lady whose bouquet was lying on the stone floor, probably trampled underfoot by the heedless crowd. So this was "the old mam'selle" who lived alone in the highest rooms of the back building of the house, a continual source of discord between the cook and Heinrich. Frederica declared that the old mam'selle had a terrible crime on her conscience—she had been the cause of her father's death. This shocking story had filled little Felicitas with fright and horror, but she did not believe it now. That little lady, with her kind face and tearful eyes, kill her own father! Heinrich was undoubtedly right when he persistently shook his head and maintained that there must be a different side to the story.
Years before the old mam'selle had lived in the front rooms, "but"—as the cook repeated the ever-renewed expressions of wrath—"she could not be prevented from profaning the Sabbath afternoons by singing unholy songs and playing merry tunes." In vain had "the mistress" pictured to her the bliss of heaven and the tortures of hell, the abomination was continued till nobody in the household could bear it any longer, and Herr Hellwig finally yielded to his wife's will, and made the old mam'selle go up to the attic rooms just under the roof.
"There she could do no mischief," Frederica always added, and she was undoubtedly right, for not a note of the piano was ever heard in the house.
Her uncle must have been very angry with the old mam'selle, the child fancied, for he had never mentioned her, and yet she was his father's sister and looked so much like him. The thought of this resemblance roused an eager longing in Felicitas's heart; she would have gone up to the rooms under the roof, but she remembered John's stern face and trembled with fear—the old mam'selle had lived for years behind bolts and locks.
At the end of a long, disused passage, close by the stairs leading from the lower stories, was a door. Once, when she and Nathanael were there playing together, the boy had said, softly:
"She lives there." Then, pounding on the door with both fists, he had shouted: "Old witch under the roof, come down!" and dashed off down-stairs as fast as he could go.
Oh, how little Felicitas's heart had throbbed with fright! Not for an instant did she doubt that some terrible old woman, with a big knife in her hand, must dart out and clutch her by the hair.
Twilight was approaching. The last golden rays of the autumn sun were shining on the cross surmounting the gable of the town-hall opposite, and the tall clock in the room struck slowly five—its strokes had been just as slow and distinct two hours before, when it marked three, the time when its gentle owner, who for years had regularly wound it with loving care, had been borne out of his house.   Hitherto a sort of hush had pervaded the whole mansion: but now the sitting-room door suddenly opened and a firm, heavy step sounded on the floor. Felicitas shrunk further into the shadow of the curtain, for the widow was approaching her husband's room. This seemed a strange thing to the child; during Hellwig's lifetime his wife's tall figure had never crossed this threshold. She entered hastily, bolted the door behind her, and stood still a moment in the center of the room, gazing slowly, with an indescribably triumphant expression, around the apartment she had so long avoided.
Over Hellwig's desk hung two finely executed portraits, in oil colors, of a gentleman and lady. The latter, whose haughty features were animated by eyes sparkling with intelligence and mirth, was attired in the ugly costume that was an attempt to revive the dress of the ancient Greeks. The short waist of the gleaming white silk was made still shorter by a red girdle embroidered with gold; the neck and arms, almost too plump for beauty, were scantily covered, and by no means harmonized with the modest bunch of violets worn in the belt. This was Hellwig's mother.
The widow now approached this picture, and for a moment seemed to fairly gloat over it. Then she mounted a chair, took it down from the place where it had hung so many years, and with as little noise as possible cautiously drove a new nail just between the two old ones, on which she hung the portrait of Hellwig's father. He now looked down alone, while the widow left the room with the other picture. Felicitas strained her ears to listen as her footsteps echoed through the hall, mounted the first flight of stairs, then climbed higher and higher—she had probably gone to the attic.
She had not wholly closed the door behind her, and when the sound of her steps had died away Heinrich's face peered timidly through the crack.
"Yes, Frederica!" he called, in smothered, awe-struck tones, "yes, it really was the old mistress's picture."
The cook pushed the door wide open and looked in.
"Heavenly powers! so it was !" she cried, clasping her hands, "Dear me, if the proud lady knew it she would turn, in her grave and our dead master too. But she really was shockingly dressed—with her bosom so bare— enough to shame any good Christian!"
"Do you think so?" replied Heinrich, with a sly twinkle in his eyes. "I'll tell you something, Frederica!" he added, counting his remarks on his left thumb with the forefinger of his right hand. "Firstly, old Frau Hellwig couldn't bear to have her son marry our mistress, and she will never forget that; secondly, the old lady was bright and lively, fond of a gay time, and, thirdly, she once called our mistress 'a heartless devotee.' What do you say to that?"
While Heinrich was speaking Felicitas came out of her hiding-place. The child instinctively felt that the rough, but kind-hearted old servant, would henceforth be her sole protector in the house. He was very fond of her, and it was principally due to his watchful care that she had hitherto remained in blissful ignorance of her past,
"Ah, little Fay, are you there?" he said, pleasantly, taking her little hand in his hard fingers. "I've been looking everywhere for you. Come down to the servants' room; you won't be allowed to stay here now, poor thing. If the old pictures have to go, why—"
He sighed and shut the door. Frederica had hurried back to the kitchen, for her mistress was heard coming down the stairs.
Felicitas glanced timidly around the hall—it was empty. Scattered leaves and flowers strewed the floor where the coffin had stood.
"Where is uncle?" she whispered, as she let Heinrich lead her toward the servants' room.
"Oh, they have carried him away; but you know, child, he is now in heaven—and much happier and better off than he would be here on the earth," replied Heinrich, sorrowfully.
He took his cap from the nail and went away to do some errand in the town.
The servants' room was already dark. After Heinrich had left her Felicitas knelt on the wooden bench under the narrow, grated window and gazed up at the little patch of sky which could be seen above the gable roofs of the houses in the steep street—the sky where her uncle was now.
She started in terror as Frederica came in with the kitchen lamp. The old cook set a plate of bread and butter on the table.
"Here is your supper, child; come and eat it," she said.
Felicitas advanced, but without touching the food, took the slate Heinrich had brought from her uncle's room and began to write. Hasty steps passed through the adjoining kitchen, and Nathanael's fair head was thrust through the open door. The little girl trembled, for he was always very disagreeable when they were alone together.
"Aha, there's Miss Fay!" he cried, in the voice Felicitas dreaded. "Tell me, you naughty creature, where have you been hiding all this while?"
"I have been in the green room," she replied, without looking up.
"Well, don't try that again," he said, angrily. "Mamma says you don't belong there now. What are you writing?"
"My exercise for Herr Richter."
"Who—for Herr Richter," he repeated, effacing, with a hasty movement of his hand, everything she had written on the slate. "Do you suppose mamma will be stupid enough to pay for expensive private lessons? That's all over now," he says. "You can go back again to the place you came from, and become what your mother was, and they'll make an end of you so"'—he went through the pantomine of shooting and cried, "bang!"
The child gazed at him with dilated eyes. He spoke of her mother—he had never done that before, but she could not understand what he meant.
"You don't know my mamma!" she said, in a tone of mingled doubt and inquiry; it seemed as though she was fairly holding her breath.
"Oh, I know a great deal more about her than you do!" he answered, and, after a pause, during which he glanced spitefully at her from under his bent brows, added: "I'll warrant you don't even know what your parents were!"
The child shook her head with lovely, artless grace, and her eyes rested on him with a timid, pleading expression— she knew the boy's nature far too well not to be aware that he was going to say something to give her pain.
"They were players!" he shouted, every tone instinct with malice. "People like those we saw at the fair—they performed tricks, turned somersaults, and then went round with a plate and begged."
The slate fell on the floor and was shattered into fragments. Felicitas had started up and rushed wildly past the bewildered boy into the kitchen.
"He lies, oh surely he lies, Frederica!" she shrieked, in piercing tones, clutching the cook's arm.
"I can't quite say that, but he has exaggerated it," replied the cook, whose hard heart felt a thrill of pity at the sight of the child's terrible excitement. "They did not beg—but they were play-actors."
"And very poor tricks they played, too!" added Nathanael, going up to the hearth and looking sharply into Felicitas's face. She was not crying and gazed so boldly at him with her bright, glowing eyes that he flew into a rage.
"They did awful things," he continued. "Your mother tempted God, and so she can never get to heaven, mamma says."
"She is not dead!" panted Felicitas. Her little white lips quivered, and she convulsively clutched the folds of the cook's skirt.
"Oh, yes, she died long, long ago, you stupid creature. Papa wouldn't tell you. She was shot by one of the soldiers over there in the town-hall, while she was performing one of her tricks."
The tortured child uttered a piercing shriek. Frederica had nodded assent at the boy's last words, so he had told no lie.
At this moment Heinrich returned from his errand, and Nathanael took to his heels as soon as the old servant's sturdy figure appeared on the threshold. Malicious natures always have an unconquerable fear of a frank, honest face. The cook's conscience also pricked her, and she busied herself about her hearth.
Felicitas no longercriedloudly. Pressing her forehead against her folded arms, which rested on the wall, she struggled to repress her passionate sobs.
The child's piercing shriek had reached Heinrich's ears as he entered the hall, he saw Nathanael vanish behind the door, and instantly knew that some act of cruelty had been done. Without a word he drew the little one back from the wall, and lifted her face—it was distorted with suffering. At the sight of him, Felicitas again burst into loud weeping and gasped amid her sobs:
"They have shot my dear little mother, my good, kind mamma,'"
Heinrich's broad, good-natured face grew white with rage—it cost him a struggle to repress an oath.
"Who told you that?" he asked, looking fiercely at Frederica.
The child made no reply, and the cook began to tell the story, while she stirred the fire, basted the meat that was roasting, and did all sorts of needless things to avoid looking Heinrich in the face.
"I think, too, that Nathanael need not have told her today," she wound up; "tomorrow or the day after the mistress will take her in charge, and she won't be handled with gloves then—rely upon it."
Heinrich led Felicitas back to the servants' room, sat down on the wooden bench by her side, and tried his best, in his rough way, to comfort her. He told her as carefully as he could about the terrible accident in the town-hall, and ended by saying that her mamma who, all the people said, looked just like an angel, must now be in heaven, and could see her little Fay every moment. Then he tenderly stroked the child's head, as she again burst into convulsive sobs.
CHAPTER VIII.
The next morning the church-bells rang solemnly through the town. Throngs of devout Christians crowded the steep, narrow street leading to the church. Velvets and silks, with other less costly Sunday garments, were worn to the house of worship, not solely in honor of God, but also to dazzle the eyes of the neighbors.
A little figure, muffled in black, glided out of the stately mansion on the corner of the market-place. No one would have discovered under the coarse, heavy shawl pinned under the chin the dainty, graceful form of little Felicitas. Frederica had wrapped her in it, with many high-sounding words about the mistress having given her such a handsome mourning garment, and then, opening the house -door, strictly charged the child not to go to the family pew as usual—her place now was on the benches occupied by the children of the parish school.
Felicitas pushed her hymn-book under her arm, and swiftly turned the corner.    At first she hurried on impatiently, but before her, with solemn, measured pace, walked three black-garbed figures, at sight of whom she involuntarily slackened her steps. Yes, it was Frau Hellwig between her two sons, and every one they met bowed low and reverently. True, she rarely had a kind look for any one, her lips often uttered pitiless words to those who sought her aid, and the little boy walking at her left beat and kicked the beggar-children who ventured to her door, told lies, and then solemnly denied his falsehoods—but all that did not matter. They were going to church, and would sit in aristocratic seclusion in the family pew, and pray to God, who loved them and would receive them into His heaven; for they were not play-actors.
The three figures vanished through the door of the church. The child's timid eyes followed them, then she darted swiftly past all the open doors, through which the notes of the organ were already pealing, and which afforded her a glimpse of the mysterious gloom within, and the rows of devout worshipers. But the music of the organ vainly appealed to the throbbing heart of the hurt, defiant child hurrying by outside. She could not pray to God— He did not care for her poor dead mother, He would not admit her into His vast blue heaven—she was lying alone in the grave-yard, her child must go to her there.
The little girl turned into a second street, even steeper than the one outside the house. Then came the ugly gate of the town, with its still uglier tower, but through the vaulted gate-way there was a sheen of green foliage, where stretched the superb avenues of linden-trees, contrasting with the ancient blackened walls, like a fresh myrtle wreath on the gray locks of age. How silent and solemn it was up here! The child started at the creaking of the gravel under her own tread—she was following forbidden paths. But she only ran on the faster, and at last stood, panting for breath, at the entrance of the grave-yard.
Felicitas had never visited this quiet spot—she knew nothing about the small, square lots, so monotonously alike the head-stones beneath which the stir of life died noiselessly away. Beside the black iron bars of the gate, two elder bushes stretched their branches, bending under the weight of their shining dark berries, and on one side rose the gray walls of an ancient church—gloomy enough in aspect, but on the opposite side extended a broad lawn, planted with shrubs and flowers, on which rested the soft golden sunlight of the autumn. 
"Whom do you want to see, little girl?" asked a man in his shirt-sleeves, who stood leaning against the door of the receiving-tomb, puffing clouds of blue smoke from his pipe into the clear air.
"My mamma," replied Felicitas, hastily, gazing searchingly over the flower-set turf.
"Ah—is she here?   Who was she?"
"She was an actress."
Oh! yes, she was killed five years ago, in the town-hall.    There she lies, over yonder, close by the corner of the church."
And now the poor, forsaken little creature was standing by the tiny spot of earth that covered the object of all her sweet, longing, childish dream. All the graves around were adorned; most of them were so thickly strewn with asters that it seemed as if God had showered all the stars in the sky upon them. But the narrow strip at the child's feet had nothing but dry, scorched grass, mingled with a rank growth of knot-weed. Heedless feet had worn a pathway across it; the earth loosely heaped on the mound, undermined by the rain, had sunk, carrying with it the plain, white stone at the foot of the neglected grave, till the large black letters, " Meta d'Orlowska," were barely above the ground. Felicitas knelt beside the stone, pressing her little hands on a bare pitch of earth, where no grass grew. Earth, nothing but earth! This hard, unfeeling mass was lying on the tender face, the beloved form, in its shining satin dress, and the stiff, white hands filled with flowers. The child now knew that her mother had not merely been sleeping.
"Dear mamma," she whispered, "you can't see me, but I am here beside you! And though God does not care for you—He hasn't given you even one little flower—and no one thinks of you, I love you and will always come to you! I will love nobody else, dear mamma, not even God, who is so harsh and unkind to you."
This was the child's first prayer beside the grave of her outcast mother. A light breeze swept by, soft and cool as the soothing touch of a mother's hand upon the throbbing brow of her fevered child. The asters nodded to the grieving little one, and a faint whisper ran through the dry seed-vessels of the weeds, while above stretched the transparent vault of heaven in unclouded brightness—the eternal, changeless heaven which human fancies convert into a battle-ground of earthly passions.
When Felicitas returned to the gloomy house on the market-place—the child did not know how long she had been sitting dreaming in the vast, quiet grave-yard—she found the street-door ajar. She slipped in, but stopped in terror in the nearest corner, for the door of her uncle's room stood partly open, and John's voice was heard as he paced with firm, slow steps up and down the apartment.
Spite of the fierce defiance which had animated the, child since the day before, her fear of the cold, unmoved voice, and unfeeling gray eyes was still greater. She could not pass the half-open door, her little feet paused as though rooted to the stone floor.
"I think you are perfectly, right mother," John said, stopping; "the troublesome little creature would be much better off if reared in some honest mechanic's household. But this unfinished letter is as binding to me as if it were a legally executed will. My father once said that he would never let the child leave the shelter of his house, unless her own father reclaimed her, and in the words, 'I wish to leave the child intrusted to me in your charge,' he makes me the executor of his wish. It is not fitting for me to find fault with any of my father's acts, but had he only known how I detest the class of people from which this child descended, he would have spared me this guardianship."
"You don't know what you are expecting from me, John," replied the widow, in a tone of extreme annoyance. "For five years I have been forced to tolerate the presence of this outcast, God-forsaken creature—I can bear it no longer."
"Then we have no expedient except an appeal to the father."
"Oh, you can appeal as long as you choose," replied Fran Hellwig, with a short, sneering laugh. "He's thankful to be rid of the expense of her support. Doctor Boehm told me that all he knows is that the man wrote once from Hamburg—but never since."
"Yet, as a good Christian, mother, you could not consent to let the child go back where her soul would be forever lost—"
"It is lost now."
"No, mother. Though I won't deny that frivolity must be inherent in her blood, I am a firm believer in the blessing of a good education."
"Then you mean that we are to go on for years paying out our money for this creature who is nothing in the world to us? She is taking French lessons, drawing lessons, and—"
"No, indeed, I have no such intention," John interrupted—for the first time the monotonous voice gained a shade of animation. "I have no such intention," he repeated; "I have a horror of these modern ideas concerning the education of women. We shall soon find no women like yourself, of true Christian spirit, who never overstep the bounds of propriety. No, all that must cease! Bring up the child to understand household duties, fit her for what she must someday become—a servant. I leave the matter entirely in your hands, with no anxiety, mother. With your strong will, your Christian character—" Here the door was suddenly pushed wide open, and Nathanael, who had evidently grown tired of the conversation, rushed out of the room. Felicitas drew back against the wall; but he saw her and pounced upon the trembling child like a bird of prey.
"Oh, yes, hide, but that will do you no good!" he ex-claimed, grasping her slender wrist so roughly, as he dragged her on, that she screamed aloud. "Come straight along with me, and tell mamma the text of the sermon! You can't do it though! You were not on the school benches. I watched for you. And what do you look like? Just see her dress, mamma!"
While speaking he dragged the struggling child to the door.
"Come in," said John, who was standing in the middle of the room, still holding his father's letter in his hand.
Felicitas slowly crossed the threshold, and gazed a moment at the tall, slender figure before her. There was not an atom of dust upon his neat black garments; his linen was dazzlingly white; there was not a hair awry upon his forehead under the hand that constantly stroked it—everything about him was scrupulously neat and orderly. He glanced with an expression of disgust at the hero of the child's dress.
"Where did you get that?" he asked, pointing to the spot that had attracted his eyes.
Felicitas glanced down timidly—it certainly was a sorry spectacle. The grass and path had been wet with dew; when she threw herself down on the grave she had not thought of the conspicuous stains that might be left upon her black dress. She stood in silence, her eyes fixed on the floor.
"Well, no answer?   You look like guilt itself.   So you were not at church?" ,    " No," replied the girl, frankly.
"Where were you then?"
She made no answer. She would have been flogged to death rather than utter her mother's name in the presence of these ears.
"I'll tell you, John," replied Nathanael in her stead, "she was out in our garden eating fruit—she's always doing it."
Felicitas flashed an angry glance at him, but did not speak.
"Answer," John ordered, "is Nathanael right ?"
"No, he has told a lie, as he always does," replied the child firmly.
John quietly stretched out his arm and stopped Nathanael, who was about to rush at his accuser.
"Don't touch her, Nathanael," said Frau Hellwig. Hitherto she had been sitting silently at the window in her husband's arm-chair; now she rose. Oh, what a gloomy shadow her tall figure cast upon the room!
"You will believe me, John," she said, addressing her son, "when I assure you that Nathanael never tells falsehoods. He is devout and God-fearing to a degree rarely seen in a child. I have watched and trained him myself, which will be enough for you. This miserable creature must not cause strife between brothers, as she did between their parents. Is it not unpardonable, that, instead of going to church, she should have been wandering about in other places—no matter where."
Her eyes coldly scanned the little figure.
"Where is the new shawl given to you this morning?" she suddenly asked.
Felicitas, startled, raised her hands to her shoulders— alas, it was gone; she had doubtless left it in the grave-yard.
She felt that she had been guilty of great carelessness, and was deeply ashamed. Her downcast eyes filled with tears, and an entreaty for forgiveness rose to her lips.
"Well, what do you say to this, John?" asked Frau Hellwig, in cutting tones. "I gave her the shawl a few hours ago, and you see by her face it is already lost. I should like to know how much her clothes cost your father yearly. Give her up, I say. She is past mending. You will never uproot what she inherits from a frivolous, wicked mother."
A terrible change instantly took place in Felicitas whole appearance. A deep scarlet flush suffused her face and throat to the edge of the coarse black woolen frock. Her dark eyes, still glittering with tears of penitence, flashed fire at Frau Hellwig. The timid fear, which, for five years had weighed upon the child's heart and closed her lips, had vanished. Everything which, since the day before, had strained her nerves to the most painful tension, suddenly rushed upon her memory with overpowering strength. She was fairly frantic.
"Do not speak of my poor mother, I will not bear it," she cried, the tones of her voice, usually so soft, becoming almost shrill. "She has done you no harm. My uncle always said that we must not speak evil of the dead, because they cannot defend themselves. But you do it, and it is very wicked."
"Do you see the little fury, John?" said Frau Hellwig, scornfully. "This is the result of your father's mode of education! This is the 'fairy-like creature,' as he calls her in his letter."
"She is right to defend her mother," said John, in a low tone, with a very grave expression, "but her way of doing it is shocking. How can you speak so improperly to this lady?" he went on, turning to Felicitas, and a faint flush tinged his pale face. "Don't you know that you must starve if she does not give you bread, and that the stones in the street will be your pillow if she turns you from the house?"
"I don't want her bread," gasped the child. "She is a wicked, wicked woman! She has terrible eyes. I won't stay here in your house where people tell lies, and I am always afraid of being ill-treated. I would rather go under the black earth to my mother. I'd rather starve—"
She could say no more. John seized her arm, his thin fingers closed on her soft flesh like an iron vise, and shook her violently.
"Come to your senses, you naughty child!" he exclaimed. "Fy, a girl, and so willful! Besides your tendency to frivolity and unruliness, have you also this ungovernable temper? I see much has been neglected here, mother," he continued, "but under your training all will soon be changed."
Still holding the child by the arm, he led her roughly to the servants' room.
"From this day you are under my control—remember that!" he said, harshly. "Even when I am away I shall know how to punish you severely whenever I hear that you are not perfectly obedient to my mother. For your conduct to-day you shall be kept in the house a long time, especially as you make such bad use of your liberty. You are not to enter the garden at all without my mother's especial permission, nor must you go into the street except on your way to and from the parish school, which you will now attend. You will have your meals here in the servants' room and remain here all the time until you learn to behave better. Do you understand me?"
The little girl silently turned away her face and he left the room.
CHAPTER  IX.
In the afternoon the Hellwig family drank their coffee in the garden. Frederica put on her flannel-lined calico Sunday cloak and the wadded black silk hood she wore on state occasions, and went first to church and then to see "a cousin." Heinrich and Felicitas were left alone in the big, quiet house. The former had gone privately to the church-yard some time before and brought back the unlucky shawl, which now lay dusted and neatly folded in a drawer.
The worthy fellow had heard and partly seen from the kitchen the incident of the morning, and been sorely tempted to rush in and shake the son of the house with his sturdy fists as John had shaken the fragile form of the rebellious child. Now he sat in the servants' room whittling away at his cane, and meanwhile whistling very unmusically. He was by no means absorbed in his task, but constantly cast troubled stolen glances at the silent child. That was not like the face of little Felicitas. She sat there like a prisoned bird, but a bird whose heart still throbs with the fierce longing for liberty, and which still remembers, with implacable animosity, the hands that caged it. On her lap lay the "Robinson Crusoe " Heinrich had brought at his own peril from Nathanael's book-case, but she had not looked at it. The lonely man was happy on his island, there were no hateful people there who called his mother frivolous and wicked, the sparkling sunbeams shone on the palm-trees with the green waving grass of the fertile meadows; here the light of heaven came dimly, like a gloomy twilight, through the narrow, grated windows, and nowhere, neither in the narrow street outside nor here in the house, was there a single green leaf to refresh the eye. True, there was an asclepias plant in the sitting-room, the only flower Frau Hellwig valued, but Felicitas could not endure its stiff blossoms which looked as though they were made of china, while the hard, rigid leaves hung motionless, unstirred by any breeze. What could be lovelier than the green boughs of the trees and bushes outside the town, swaying lightly as the wind swept through them with a careless rustle and murmur?
Suddenly the child sprang up. From the garret she could get a wide view of the surrounding country ; the sun, too, was shining there. She flitted swiftly up the winding staircase like a shadow.
The old house had degenerated from its former estate. Long ago it had been the residence of nobles. There was still something very stately in its aspect, though not to the degree of the soaring towers which seem to leave the whole earth below them and would fain pierce the sky ; there was a trace of this aspiration in the turreted bay-windows, and especially in the enormous chimneys, whose size had been a necessity in times when deer were roasted whole in the kitchens of noblemen's houses. The blue blood that had once pulsed in the hearts of its aristocratic owners had long since died, nay, in its last scions, had, like the old house, greatly degenerated.
The front of the house, which faced the market-place, 1»ad been somewhat modernized, but the three huge wings that formed the back buildings still stood untouched, just as they had been left by the architect. There were still long, echoing passages, with crooked walls and sunken floors, where even at high noon a dusky twilight reigned, and one might expect to see some legendary ancestress, in a trailing gray robe, with pallid face and shadowy hands crossed on her breast, glide noiselessly along. Short flights of stairs that creak under the lightest footstep suddenly appeared at the end of a corridor, leading down to some mysterious door securely locked, or out-of-the-way, apparently useless corners with a single window, through whose round, lead encased sash a faint light fell on the moldering floor. The dust that fell on the head of the passer-by was historic; long years ago it had been part of the new wood-work of some balcony, or of the fresh plaster, while the blue blood was seething m living hearts.
Wherever it was possible to do so, the crest of the owner of the house, a Lord Hirschsprung, had been carved. The stone frames of the doors and windows, nay, even some of the tiles in the floor, bore a representation of the majestic stag, raising his fore-legs in the act of springing across some horrible abyss. In one of the large state chambers of the front mansion were the portraits of the knight and his lady, stiff figures in plumed cap and coif. The haughty knight still looked with imperishable pride upon a world from which his dust and title deeds, with their huge seals and continual "forevers," had long since vanished.
Felicitas stood at the top of the stairs gazing with wondering eyes through a half-opened door, which had always been locked before. How greatly the execution of her deed of vengeance must have confused the mind of the careful mistress of the house, to make her forget locks and bolts
Beyond this door was a long corridor, extending over one of the back buildings, on which several doors opened. One of these stood ajar, affording a glimpse of a room crammed with all sorts of lumber and lighted by a high dormer window. In the midst of these ancient relics, by the side of an antique arm chair, leaned old Frau Hell-wig s portrait. It was not even turned toward the wall; dust and spiders might now rest undisturbed upon the face the artist had painted with the firm conviction that it would be handed down to her remotest posterity, an object of veneration to children and children's children.
The large, prominent eyes awakened a feeling of terror in the child's mind, now that she was so near them, and she turned timidly away, but what a pang pierced her little heart, how the blood rushed to her brain—little Felicitas knew the trunk covered with seal-skin that stood on the floor yonder. Timidly, fairly holding her breath, she raised the lid. On the top lay the light-blue woolen dress, daintily bordered with embroidery. Yes, Frederica had taken it off one evening and then it disappeared and the little girl was obliged to put on an ugly dark frock.
The little hands hurriedly plunged deeper into the trunk—how many things appeared, and what memories rushed back to the child's mind at the sight. Her dead mother had handled all these elegant garments, fine enough to have clothed a little princess. Felicitas recollected with painful keenness the loving touch of her mother s soft fingers as she dressed her. Oh, where was the little kitten that had once been the child's delight! It was embroidered on a small bag. My, there was something inside, no plaything, as she at first supposed, but a pretty agate seal, whose silver tip bore the same stately stag in the act of leaping, which was repeated ad nauseam in the Hellwig mansion. Below the crest the letters M. v. H. were daintily engraved. It had doubtless belonged to her mamma, and the child's little fingers had seized it.
Higher and higher rose the tide of memories, many of which were now illumined by a ray of clearer understanding. Now she comprehended the moments when, suddenly roused from sleep, she saw her father and mother standing by her little bed—he in a spangled doublet and she with her golden hair floating loosely around her—they had just returned from their performance. And at each of these exhibitions her poor mamma had been fired at, yet the child gazed unsuspiciously at the beautiful pale face, though she still remembered how passionately, as if in breathless haste, she had been clasped, on those evenings, in her mother's arms.
Article by article the newly found treasures were stroked and caressed and then carefully replaced in the trunk, and when the lid was shut the child clasped her arms around the small, shabby box and laid her little head upon it—they, too, were old companions, who belonged together in a world that afforded no foothold in any home for the player's child. The defiant little face grew milder and tender, as it lay motionless with closed eyes, its soft cheek pressed lovingly against the moth-eaten cover of the old trunk.
The warm air stole through the window, bringing a waft of fragrance to the quiet corner of the attic where she lay. How could that bewitching perfume, which must come from whole beds of mignonette, rise so high? And what was this music that floated in with the sweet odors? Felicitas opened her eyes and sat up to listen. It could not be the organ from the church near by—the services had long been over. An ear better trained than the ignorant child's could never have thought of associating this melody with an organ. Someone was playing the overture to "Don Giovanni" most admirably upon a piano.
Felicitas pushed a rickety table to the window and mounted it. Ah, what was it she saw! There was no wide view of the surrounding country, as she had expected; four roofs formed a square, and the opposite one, which towered above the rest, shut out any distant prospect; but this very roof presented to the child's wondering gaze a marvel not to be surpassed by the most delightful fairy-tale. Its long, gentle slope, instead of the dark, dingy, moss-grown tiles that covered the other roofs, was fairly ablaze with flower; asters and dahlias were waving their bright blossoms on this airy perch as securely as those that bloomed below close to the firm earth. As far as human arm could reach from the balcony running just below the roof rows of flowers extended, and beyond grew vines displaying every shade of red in their dancing leaves—like a cloak flung round the shoulders of some brilliant beauty. Wild grape-vines twined still higher, stretching their shining leaves and tendrils and clusters of blue-black fruit to the neighboring roofs. The balcony extended the whole length of the roof and was as light and airy as though it might sway in every breeze, yet the top of the railing supported heavy boxes of earth filled with mignonettes, and hundreds of monthly roses nodded their bright blossoms. A somewhat heavy white garden-chair beside a small round table, on which stood a dainty china coffee-service, unmistakably proved that creatures of flesh and blood lived here, though the child still fancied that the little square inclosure opening by a glass door from the balcony must be the abode of the fairy of the flowers. Neither roof nor walls could be seen, both were completely overgrown by the large leaves of the Scotch ivy, mingled with a vine that, clambering upward, dangled the velvety orange-yellow petals of its blossoms over the glass door, now slightly ajar, from which poured the notes that had attracted the child to the window.
A glance down into the square inclosed by the four buildings suddenly gave Felicitas an idea where she was. Feathered fowl vied with each other in crowing and cackling—it was the poultry yard. The child had never entered it; Frederic fearing that one of its cackling tenants might get into the front court-yard, or even the hall, always kept the key in her pocket. But how often she had come into the kitchen with an angry look, grumbling to Heinrich: "That old woman is watering her worthless grass again and all the gutters are overflowing!" So these thousands of lovely flowers were the "worthless grass," and the being who watched and tended them was the old mam'selle, who was again "profaning the Sabbath by unholy songs and merry tunes."
These thoughts had scarcely entered the little head before the child's feet were on the window-sill. The elasticity of childhood, which had wholly forgotten grief and care for the moment in the sight of something new, instantly revealed herself. She could climb like a squirrel, and to run over the roofs was a trivial feat. The gutters that ran under two of the roofs afforded excellent footing, though they looked rather moss-grown and shaky, and both were somewhat warped at the corner where they joined, but they wouldn't break down for a long, long time, and could not be compared with the slender ropes on which Felicitas had seen girls far smaller than herself dancing. Slipping out of the window, two steps down the slanting roof brought her to the gutter. It creaked and groaned under the little feet that tripped bravely along it, with no support on her right hand, and on her left a sheer descent of four stories. If her mother's eyes could have seen her! But everything succeeded admirably. A climb up the higher roof, a spring over the railing) and the child stood, with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, among the flowers, looking over the other Proofs into the open country, bathed in the crimson radiance of a sky glowing with the hues of sunset.
On the round table lay several papers; the child smiled as she read the title of one of them: "The Garten-laube" (Garden-arbor). Surely the name was well suited to this bright, sunny spot, fanned by the pure, fresh air.
Then she turned and looked timidly through the glass panes that perhaps had never reflected a child's face. Did the ivy grow through the roof and twine its tendrils around the spacious room? The wall was completely covered with climbing vines, but brackets, placed at short distances apart, held large plaster of Paris busts, a noteworthy collection of grave, calm faces, that gleamed forth in spectral contrast from the dense green background of foliage, silently submitting to the saucy pranks of the ivy, which flung a garland across the breast of one or twined a wreath around the thoughtful brows of another. The windows fared no better; vines hung like a dark-green cloud over the curtains. Yet these two windows afforded magnificent views over the roofs, the forest gay with autumnal foliage on the crest of the mountain, and the-intervening tracts of stubble.
A piano stood between the windows.    The old mam'selle, dressed precisely as she had been the day before, sat in front of it, her delicate  fingers striking the keys with a firm, strong touch. Her face looked somewhat different; she wore spectacles, and, a faint flush tinged the cheeks that yesterday had been white as snow.
Little Felicitas had entered softly and was standing in the arched entrance. Was the old lady conscious of some human being's presence, or had she heard a noise? Suddenly pausing in the midst of a brilliant passage, she fixed her large eyes over her glasses upon the child. An electric shock seemed to thrill the fragile figure, a faint cry escaped her lips, and, removing her spectacles with a trembling hand, she rose, supporting herself on the instrument, " How did you get here, my child?" she asked at last in a voice which, spite of the  tremor  of terror, sounded sweet and gentle.
"Over the roofs," replied the little girl diffidently, pointing back across the court-yard.
"Over the roofs? That is impossible. Come here and show me how you came." Taking the child's hand, she led her out upon the balcony. Felicitas showed her the attic window and the gutters. The old lady covered tier face with her hands in terror.
"Oh, don't be frightened!" said Felicitas, in her sweet, innocent voice. "It's really very easy. Doctor Boehm says I'm like a bunch of feathers, and haven't any bones."
The oid mam'selle removed her hands and smiled—a charming smile which disclosed two rows of dazzlingly white teeth. Then she led the little girl back into the room and took her seat in an arm-chair.
"You are little Fay, are you not?" she asked, lifting Felicitas into her lap. "I know you though you did not fly in on pink gauze wings. Your old friend Heinrich told me about you to-day."
At Heinrich's name the whole burden of the child's grief returned to her memory. As in the morning, a burning flush crimsoned her cheeks, while wrath and sorrow drew the harsh lines around the little mouth that so completely transformed the whole expression of her face. The sudden alteration did not escape the old mam'selle's notice. Taking the little face between her hands, she bent toward it.
"Little daughter," she went on, "for many years Heinrich has come up here every Sunday to look after various matters for me. He knows that he is never permitted to mention what is occurring in the front of the house, and until to-day he has never disobeyed this command. Think how dearly he must love little Fay, to act in opposition to my strict orders."
The child's defiant eyes softened.
"Yes, he loves me—but no one else does," she said, her voice breaking.
"No one else!" the old lady repeated, her unspeakably gentle gaze resting lovingly on the child's face. "Do you not know that there is one who will always love you, though every human being should turn away? The dear God in—"
"Oh, He doesn't care for me, because I'm a player's child." Felicitas interrupted with sudden passion. "Frau Hellwig said this morning that my soul was lost, and everybody down in the house says that He has shut out my poor mamma from His heaven—she is not there with Him. And I don't love him any more—not a bit! And I don't want to go to Him when I die. What shall I do, it my mamma is not there?"
"Merciful God! What have these cruel people, with their so called Christianity, done to you, poor child!"
Rising hastily, the old lady opened a side door. It seemed to the child as if soft white clouds were floating over her head, for over the bed, which stood in one corner, the door, and the windows, fell curtains of snow-white muslin. The pale-green walls of the little chamber were only visible here and there between the fleecy texture of the drapery. What a contrast between this little room, fresh and stainless as the thoughts of a pure', unsullied mind, and the gloomy boudoir in the mansion below, where Frau Hellwig kneeled in prayer early every morning upon a prie dieu, whose embroidered cushion had ample room for all the cruel symbols of the passion but none for the emblems of peace and love.
On a little table beside the bed lay a large, well-read Bible. The old lady opened it with a steady hand and read aloud with deep feeling: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." She read on, closing with the verse: "Love never faileth but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail, whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away."
"And this love comes from Him—yes, God himself is this love," she said, putting her arm around the little girl. "Your mamma is His child, as all are His children, and she has gone to him, for 'Love never faileth.' Seek her above, and when you look up at night to the sky with its millions of wonderful stars, think that the Creator of such a heaven has made no hell! And now you will love Him once more, love Him with all your heart, will you not, my little Fay?"
The child made no answer, but threw her arms passionately around the neck of her gentle comforter, while burning tears streamed from her eyes.
*******
Two days after, a carriage stood waiting before the Hellwig mansion. The widow entered it with her two sons, whom she was going to accompany to the next town. John was on his way to Bonn, to study medicine, but he intended to first place Nathaniel in the school where he had received his own education.
Heinrich stood, broad-shouldered and corpulent, at the open door with Frederica, watching the carriage lumber slowly and clumsily over the rough pavement of the market-place. Something like a low whistle—always a sign of satisfaction—escaped his pursed lips, and he stuck both thumbs into his closed fists, a gesture which among the lower classes signifies: "Lord, preserve us from a return of misfortune!"
"Well, it will be seven years and more before we see either of those boys in the house again," he said joyously to Frederica, who was dutifully holding a corner of her apron to her eyes.
"And are you glad of that, you blockhead?" she cried. "Fine thanks for the parting present you had from the young master!"
"Go into the kitchen—the trash is lying on the hearth. I won't touch it. You can buy yourself a red petticoat and yellow shoes for the next fair."
"Oh, you shameless fellow! A red dress and yellow shoes, like a rope-dancer!" cried the old cook, wrathfully. "Oh, we all know why you are so ill-natured—the young master served you right this morning."  "Oh, you don't know the whole story!" replied Heinrich, indifferently. He thrust his hands into his pockets, shrugged his shoulders, and planted himself still more firmly on the threshold. This roused Frederica's anger to absolute fury, for his attitude expressed the utmost contempt for everything she had said,
" A man with only twenty thalers wages, and at most fifty thalers saved," she went on, spitefully, "to stand up before his rich master like the Great Mogul, and say: "Give me the child;  I will bring her up in my sister's family; she hasn't cost you a copper, and—"
"And the young master answered," added Heinrich, turning his face slowly toward the enraged cook: "The child is in the best hands, Heinrich; she will stay in this house until she is eighteen years old, and you must not venture to encourage her in any disobedience to my mother—and if you ever again catch that old witch in the kitchen listening, nail her ear to the door without ceremony." What do you think, Frederica, of my—"
He raised his arm, and the old cook fled scolding to her kitchen.
CHAPTER X.
Nine years had passed over the stately mansion on the market-place, but they had left no trace of decay, no sign of change, either in the strong walls or the woman s profile at the well-known window of the sitting-room on the ground-floor. Possibly a keen observer might have perceived that the dragon's heads on the roof had crumbled a little. No wonder; they had been pouring Heaven's tears through all these years on the stone pavement below, and in the intervals been scorched by the hot sun shine. Such changes cannot fail to alter faces, Bu the lady below stood on the firm ground of fixed conviction, the lofty pedestal of her own infallibility—in, this changeless region of ice there are no doubts, no conflicts, no mental struggles to break the external petrifaction termed an "excellent state of preservation."
Yet there was one striking change in the old house. For some weeks the curtains of the great bow-windows of the room in the second story had been raised, and pots of flowers stood on the window-sills. The glances of those who passed at first sought dutifully, as of yore, the window with the asclepias plant, and Frau Hellwig was always sure of a respectful greeting, but then their eyes cast a stolen look above. There, framed by the stone casement of the window, a woman's charming face now frequently appeared, a face fairly dazzling in its bloom, a head covered with flaxen tresses, and a pair of dove-like blue eyes that gazed out upon the world with almost child-like artlessness. This head was part of a body of exquisite symmetry, usually clad in white muslin. Sometimes—though rarely—the lovely vision at the window had a disfiguring contrast to its beauty—a child that had climbed upon a chair and looked down into the market place over the lady's shoulder. The poor little face was terribly disfigured by scrofula. The hand that had curled the thin, light hair in graceful ringlets had wasted its labor—it had only made more striking, by force of contrast, the plainness of the livid, haggard face, while the extreme elegance of its dress was ill-adapted to conceal the poor child's shapeless figure and swollen joints. Spite of the contrast between the two, they were mother and child, and had come to Thuringia for the benefit of the latter's health.
Within the last nine years an engineer had waved his magic wand over the soil of X------, and this modern rod of Moses had lured forth a bitter spring, whose waters, upon being exposed to the air, hardened, if not into gold and silver, at least into very valuable crystals of salt. This was sufficient hint to the inhabitants of X------. They established baths whose renown, in connection with the fame of the bracing air of Thuringia, soon attracted throngs of invalids.
The young mother had also come to the place for the sake of the baths, which had been ordered for her child by Professor John Hellwig, of Bonn. Yes, the lady behind the asclepias plant had done much for her son.' She had had him placed, at a very early age, under the charge of his devout relative on the Rhine, and never permitted him, during the whole seven years of his stay, to visit his home even for one vacation. His name had been regularly mentioned every morning as she knelt at her prie dieu, she had never been weary of supplying him with shirts of the requisite number and quality—and now he bad become a famous man.
Yet the young professor, with all his fame and knowledge, would scarcely have persuaded his mother to receive his patients in her carefully closed front room on the second story, had not these patients been the daughter and grand-daughter of that devout relative on the Rhine whom Frau Hellwig held in such high esteem. Besides, the beautiful young mother had the advantage of a title—she was the widow of a court councilor of Bonn. It could involve no loss of caste in the world's eyes to have a councilor's widow in the family circle, since Herr Hellwig had resolutely declined to accept any offices which would have given his wife a title.
She was sitting on the raised platform at the window. Time had seemed to leave no trace on the fine, black, woolen dress—the white collar and cuffs, nay, even the little breast-pin which fastened her collar at the neck, looked precisely the same as they had done the first evening we made the great lady's acquaintance. Her figure seemed rather fuller; the tight sleeves fitted the plump arms very snugly, and the dressmaker—possibly without orders—had made the dress fall in somewhat more ample folds round the stout, ungraceful form. Her large white-hands, holding her knitting, rested in her lap—just at this moment more important affairs engrossed the lady's Attention.
By the door, at a very respectful distance, stood a man—a thin figure in a shabby coat; the hand he often raises while speaking was hardened by toil. His voice was low and faltering—the room was so strangely still that the ticking of the clock could be distinctly heard. The lips of the stern woman uttered no word of encouragement, nay it seemed as if the motionless figure did not even breathe, as if the fixed, stony gaze could never be averted from its present object—the pallid, anxious face of the unfortunate man, who now paused, exhausted, wiping the perspiration from his forehead with his cottons handkerchief.
"You have come to the wrong person, Meister Thienemann,'' said Frau Hellwig, coldly, after a long silence; "I never divide my money into such small sums."
"Oh, Frau Hellwig, I didn't mean that; I should not be so bold," replied the man, eagerly advancing a step nearer. "But you are known as a charitable lady, who is always collecting money for the poor, your name is often in the newspapers connected with various benevolent enterprises, so I only wanted to ask you to advance from this fund twenty-five thalers on interest for six months."
Frau Hellwig smiled—the poor fellow did not know that this was the death sentence of his hope.
"I might almost think that you were a little out of your mind, Meister Thienemann," she said, sharply. "This is a new idea. But I know that you pay no heed to the pious labors of Christians to promote the interests of the Church, so I will tell you that not one copper of the three hundred thalers now in my hands will remain in this town. I collected it for missionary purposes—it is sacred money, destined to accomplish work pleasing in the sight of God, not for the support of people who are able to labor."
"Oh, madame, I don't lack industry," cried the man in a half-choked voice. "Illness brought me to this dire distress. Good heavens! In better days I have often spent my leisure hours in making little articles for your charitable fairs, because I thought the proceeds would help some of our poor, and now the money will all be sent abroad, while so many of our own townspeople haven't a shoe to their feet or a log of wood for the winter."
"I forbid you to make such impertinent remarks. We do sometimes distribute alms in this town, but we choose the objects of our bounty, Meister Thienemann. Men who attend mechanic's clubs and listen to lectures filled with false doctrine, of course receive nothing. You would do better if you stuck to your bench, instead of peering into stars and stones, and then asserting that they contain many contradictions of what is written in the Holy Scriptures. Yes, yes, all such blasphemous talk reaches our ears and we take careful note of it and govern ourselves accordingly. Now you know my opinion, and that you have nothing to hope from me."
She turned away and looked out of the window.
"Oh, what things we must submit to hear when we are pressed by poverty!" sighed the man. "It's my wife's fault; she would not rest till I came here."
He glanced toward the other window of the room, but receiving neither help nor even a word of comfort left the apartment. The poor man's last look had been turned toward the councilor's widow, who was sitting opposite to Frau Hellwig. If ever there was a woman fitted to awaken hope in the heart of a supplicant it was surely this blooming creature in her airy, spotless white robes. The soft lines of the profile, the halo of fair curls above her brow, and the blue eyes, gave the impression of an angel's head—though, to a keen observer, a head carved in stone; for while more than once a flush of indignation had crimsoned Frau Hellwig's brow, as the petitioner so touchingly expressed, both in voice and gesture, his sore need, the lovely oval of the widow's countenance had not lost its smiling repose, even for an instant. The beautiful bosom rose and fell without the least emotion; the rose in her embroidery had gained a leaf during the little scene, and the most rigid scrutiny could not have detected any mistake in the carefully counted stitches.
"Surely, you won't allow this matter to vex you, aunt?" she said, in a sweet, caressing voice, when the mechanic had left the room. "My husband never approved of these progressive workmen, and their clubs were an abomination to him. Oh, there is Caroline!"
She motioned toward the door of the kitchen, through which a young girl had passed noiselessly some time before the carpenter had left the room. Whoever had seen the juggler's fair young wife, as she stood in front of the soldiers' muskets fourteen years ago, would have involuntarily started at the striking resemblance which made the girl seem like an apparition risen from the dead. The graceful figure was the same, though perhaps a little slighter, and clad in coarse, dark material, while the hapless woman had been surrounded by the glittering display of theatrical splendor. There was the same faultless outline of the head, the low, white brow, and the almost imperceptible droop at the corners of the mouth, which lent the face a bewitching expression of melancholy. This expression had been heightened, in the unfortunate wife, by the tearful glance of her dark-grey eyes; but as the young girl at this moment raised her lids, they disclosed sparkling eyes of dark-brown. These eyes revealed a nature which would not submit, would not be subdued to mere passive endurance; there was strength and defiance in their glance—Polish blood flowed in her veins, stray drops from the ardent, noble stream which ever rises anew to vain struggles against superior power.
We now know that the young girl standing at the door is Felicitas, though she had been forced to answer to the simple name of Caroline. Frau Hellwig, at the very beginning of her rule, had discarded the "theatrical name" with the rest of the "theatrical rubbish" in the lumber-room.
Felicitas went up to the mistress of the house and laid an exquisitely embroidered cambric handkerchief on her work-table. The councilor's widow hurriedly seized it.
"Is this to be sold for the aid of the mission, aunt?" she asked, unfolding it and examining the embroidery.
"Why, of course," replied Frau Hellwig," Caroline worked it for that object—she has dawdled over it long enough. I think it ought to bring three thalers."
"Perhaps so," said the councilor's widow, shrugging her shoulders. "Where did you get the design for the corners, dear child?"
A faint flush mounted to Felicitas's face.
"I drew it myself," she replied, in a low tone.
The young widow looked up quickly. For a moment her blue eyes seemed to sparkle with a green light.
"Drew it yourself?" she repeated slowly. "Don't be vexed with me, child, but with my best efforts I can't understand such boldness. How could you attempt anything of the sort without the requisite knowledge? This is real cambric, and must have cost aunt at least a thaler, and now it is spoiled by the awkward pattern."
Frau Hellwig looked up angrily.
"Oh, don't be vexed with Caroline, dear aunt; she undoubtedly meant well," pleaded the young widow's sweet voice. "Perhaps the difficulty may be remedied. See, dear child, I have never studied drawing thoroughly —a pencil in a woman's hand does not please me —but I have a very, very keen eye for any defect of outline. Good heavens! What a monstrous leaf that is!"
She pointed to a long leaf, whose tip was gracefully curved, standing forth in strong relief from the transparent foundation. Felicitas made no reply, but, compressing her delicate lips, gazed fixedly into the face of her censor. The councilor's widow hastily turned away and covered her eyes with her hand.
«Oh, my dear child, that piercing glance again! " she said, complainingly. "It really is not proper for a young girl in your situation to stare at other people so defiantly. Remember what your true friend, our good Secretary Wellner, always says: ' Sweet humility, dear Caroline.' And there is that scornful curl of the lip again—it is enough to vex anybody. Do you really mean to play a romantic part and obstinately reject the worthy man's proposal because—you do not love him? Absurd! But my cousin John will have something to say about it!"
How thoroughly the young girl must have trained herself to self-control! At the widow's last words she started, and the hot, rebellious blood mounted to her forehead—her head, suddenly thrown proudly back, for an instant showed a face almost demoniac in its expression of hate and scorn. But she replied coldly and calmly, "I shall be ready to listen."
"How often must I beg you, Adele, not to allude to that annoying affair?" said Frau Hellwig, angrily. "Do you expect, in a few weeks, to bend this obstinate creature, this stick of wood—after I have tried nine years in vain? As soon as John comes home, the whole matter will be over, to my great delight. Now go and get me my bonnet and cloak," she said to Felicitas. "I hope this piece of botch-work," tossing the handkerchief scornfully aside, " will be the last you have to spoil in my service."
Felicitas silently left the room. Soon afterward Frau Hellwig and her guest walked across the market-place. The beautiful widow led her sick child tenderly by the hand. Many faces watched her from their windows; the lovely woman bestowed a gentle, artless smile on all, Rosa, her maid, and old Frederica, followed with baskets. They were to have tea in the garden outside the town, and wreaths and garlands were to be made.
The young professor was expected to return home the next day, after his nine years' absence, and though Frau Hellwig grumbled over the "folly," the councilor's widow insisted upon decorating the young man's room for his arrival.
CHAPTER XI
HEINRICH shut the street door, and Felicitas ran upstairs. How dear and familiar to the young girl was the narrow corridor above, with its close, musty atmosphere, down which she now hurried! Then came a quiet landing; a flight of rough, worm-eaten stairs led upward from the mysterious gloom below to an ancient door, covered with stiffly painted tulips and brick-red roses, dimly lighted by the faint rays streaming through bottle-green glass. Felicitas took a key from her pocket and noiselessly opened the door, beyond which appeared a narrow, dark flight of steps leading to the rooms under the roof.
The young girl had never been obliged to repeat her break-neck expedition over the house-tops. From the time of her first appearance admittance to mam'selle's hermitage had never been denied. During the first year her visits had been limited to Sundays, and then she had always gone up with Heinrich. But, after her confirmation, the old mam'selle had given her a key to the painted door, and after that she had taken advantage of every leisure moment to slip up there. So she led a two-fold life. It was not only in external things that she passed from the depths to the heights, from the dim twilight below to the bright sunshine above—her soul experienced the same transition, and gradually became so strong that all the shadows, all the trials of the lower world were left behind as soon as she ascended the dark and narrow stairs. Downstairs she ironed and cooked, using her so-called "leisure" in embroidery, whose price was devoted, as we have seen, to charitable objects; and reading, except in her Bible and prayer-book, was strictly prohibited. But, in the rooms under the roof, all the marvels of the human intellect lay wide open before her. She had an eager thirst for knowledge, and the learning possessed by the mysterious hermit was like an inexhaustible fountain, a well-cut diamond, emitting sparks of light in every direction it was turned. No one in the household, except Heinrich, knew of this intercourse—the least suspicion of it on Frau Hellwig's part would have instantly given it its death-blow. Still the old mam'selle had always charged the child to tell the truth if she should ever be questioned on the subject. But this never happened; Heinrich was always on the watch, and kept both eyes and ears open.
The dark staircase was climbed. Felicitas paused at a door to listen, then pushed a little panel aside, and looked in smiling. There was a perfect uproar of sounds within—a strange melody of singing, chirping, and screaming. In the middle of the room were two young fir-trees, along the walls grew perfect groves of plants, as fresh and green as any in the garden, and on their boughs perched flocks of merry birds. This was the only life with which mam'selle could surround herself in her solitude. True, the musical little throat always poured forth the same melodies, but on the other hand there was no fear of that terrible change of human voices, which today cry: "Hosanna! " tomorrow: "Crucify Him! "
Felicitas closed the panel, and opened another door. The reader has already had one glimpse of this ivy-grown apartment, and knows the collection of grave busts ranged along the walls, but is not aware how closely they are connected with the big books bound in red morocco, lying in yonder antique cabinet with the glass doors.   A mighty flood poured forth from those grave brows—there is no solitude, no desolation, for those who can unchain it. The busts and the works of the great masters of melody of various times shared the old mam'selle's retreat,  and as the ivy wound  its tendrils  impartially around all the busts, the lonely pianist reveled sometimes in the old Italian, sometimes in the German music.    But the antique cabinet, with its glass doors, contained treasures which would have thrown an autograph-collector into transports of delight.    Manuscripts and letters of these great composers, most of them of rare value, were in portfolios behind those doors. The collection had been made many years before, when, as old mam'selle said, smiling, her blood flowed swiftly through her veins, and her youthful energy supported her wishes—many a yellow sheet had been gained by much perseverance and hard sacrifices.
Felicitas found the old lady in a room beyond her bedroom. She was sitting on a stool before the open cupboard, and around her, on chairs and on the floor lay rolls of white linen, flannel, and a quantity of the little articles a human being requires immediately after it has uttered its first cry in this world. As the young girl entered, she turned her head—her delicate features had perceptibly altered, and though they were now bright with pleasure, the traces of declining health could not escape unnoticed.
"It is fortunate you have come, my dear Fay!" she cried. "The stork may visit the carpenter Thienemann's house at any moment—and his wife has not even the smallest article of clothing for the poor baby. Our stock is still tolerably ample, and we can make up quite a good bundle, this is all that is wanted''—she held out a pink calico cap in one hand, and laid some narrow white lace against it. "Could you sew this on at once, Fay?" she added, "the things must be ready this evening."
"Oh, Aunt Cordula," said Felicitas, taking up her needle and thread, "this isn't all these poor people need! I know that Master Thienemann wants money, too; twenty-five thalers."
The old mam'selle reflected.
"It is almost too large a sum for my present finances,'* she said. " Still, he must have it."
She rose slowly. Felicitas gave her her arm, and helped her to the music-room.
"Aunt," she said, suddenly stopping, "do you recollect that a little while ago, Frau Thienemann refused to do that washing for you, that she might not offend Frau Hellwig?"
"I believe you want to lead your old aunt astray!" cried the old mam'selle, half angrily, but there was a look of amusement in her eyes, and she lightly tapped the girl's cheek with her finger. Both laughed, and went to the cabinet with glass doors.
This clumsy, old-fashioned piece of furniture had its secrets, too. Aunt Cordula pressed an innocent-looking ornament, and instantly a little door in one of the sides flew open. The space revealed was the old lady's bank, and in former days had seemed to Felicitas a perfect treasure-house, for she was rarely permitted a timid glance at the valuables it contained. On the narrow shelves lay several rolls of gold, some silver-plate, and articles of jewelry.
While the old lady opened one of the rolls of gold and counted the thalers carefully, Felicitas seized a little box in one of the darkest corners and eagerly opened it. On the bed of cotton-wool inside lay a gold bracelet; no precious stones adorned it, but it weighed heavily in the hand, and must have been made of massive gold. The most striking thing about it, however, was its size—it would surely have slipped over any woman's hand, and seemed to have been intended for the muscular wrist of a powerful man. It was considerably wider in the middle, and here the graver's tool had carved marvelously well a wreath of roses and foliage, beautifully executed, around a medallion, on which were the following lines:
"Swa zwei liep ein andermeineut, 
Herzlichenanewanc
Und sich beidui so vereinet."
The young girl turned the bracelet in every direction looking for the rest of the verse; for, though not very learned in ancient German, she easily translated the last line into:
"And where both are so united "—but there was no end.
"Don't you know the rest, aunt?" she asked, still scanning the ornament.
The old mam'selle, keeping her finger upon the thaler she had just laid down, looked up from her counting.
"Oh, child! what have you there?" she exclaimed, hurriedly. Indignation, terror, and despair were all blended in her voice. She hastily seized the bracelet, replaced it in the box with trembling fingers, and closed the cover. A faint flush suddenly glowed on her cheek, and her frowning brows gave her expression a gloomy earnestness which the young girl had never seen before. Nay, it seemed as though the present had completely vanished under a flood of memories, and the old lady was no longer aware of Felicitas's presence, for after thrusting the box into its corner with feverish haste, she seized another one Covered with gray paper that stood beside it, and passed her right hand caressingly over its worn corners. Her face softened, and pressing it to her bosom, she murmured: "It must die before me, and yet I cannot see it perish."
Felicitas threw her arms around the fragile little figure, which seemed at this moment so feeble and helpless. It was the first time, during the nine years of their acquaintance, that she had ever seen her aunt lose her self-command. Tender and delicate in appearance, she possessed, under all circumstances, a remarkable strength of mind and an unshaken calmness which no external events could disturb. She loved Felicitas with every fiber of her heart, and imparted to the young girl all her knowledge, the whole treasure of her thoroughly pure and heathful views of life, but her past was as much sealed to-day as it had been nine years before. And Felicitas, with thoughtless haste, had touched this carefully guarded portion of her life—she bitterly reproached herself for it.
"Forgive me, aunt!" she pleaded.
How gentle and touching were the beseeching tones of the young girl Frau Hellwig had called "an obstinate creature," "a stick of wood."
The old mam'selle passed her hands over her eyes.
"Hush, child, you did nothing wrong, but I—I am talking foolishly, like an old woman!" she said, faintly. "Yes, I have grown old, old and feeble. Once I could shut my tongue behind my teeth, and keep guard over it—but that time is past—I ought to lay me down for the last sleep."
She still held the little shallow box in her hands, as if trying to find courage to execute, without delay, the death sentence she had just pronounced upon it. But, after a few minutes, she hastily restored it to its former place and locked the cabinet. The action seemed to restore her self-command. She went to the round table that stood near the cabinet, where she had been counting the money, and as if nothing had happened, added two more thalers to their glittering companions.
"Now we will wrap the money in paper," she said to Felicitas—her voice still betrayed repressed emotion— "and slip it into the pink cap—it will thus contain a blessing even before the little head is put into it. And Heinrich must be at his post punctually at nine o'clock this evening—don't forget."
The old mam'selle had her peculiarities—she shunned the light, even in her deeds of charity. Like the bat, she became active at night, and when the streets were empty and the eyes of men drooped wearily, visited many an abode of poverty. For years Heinrich had been her right hand, of whose acts the left was ignorant. He carried the old Mam'selle's alms to the homes of the poor as slyly and invisibly as though, for such occasions, he had the power of slipping out of his clumsy form, and many in the town who believed the most monstrous stories about her lived upon her charity. This was certainly a peculiarity that would have been almost incomprehensible to those pious souls who devoutly fulfill the scriptural command: "Let your light shine!"
While Aunt Cordula was wrapping up the money with scrupulous care, Felicitas opened the glass door leading out upon the balcony. It was the end of May. Oh, much praised Spring, how few knew the manner of thy coming in the land of Thuringia! Thou art no fair-haired, joyous child of the South, whose blood courses through the veins like wine, and in whose footsteps spring forth orange and myrtle blossoms.    Majesty crowns thy brow and on thy lips rest the calm smile of thoughtful creation. Thy colors are mixed carefully, and thy pictures are painted with slow deliberation.    We follow the stroke of thy brush with silent pleasure, they are not bold and daring, but lovely and full of grace. The brownish-green down which clothes the breast of the wooded mountain, while its head is still encircled by a crown of snow, the delicate green net-work of grass and weeds that covers the brown clods of earth, and the withered foliage of last year's growth still clinging to meadow and hillside—all are gradually and noiselessly transformed by thy touch to the young leaves of May, snow-drops, and clusters of violets, which, like a careful gardener, thou dost first produce ere lavishing thy guarded treasures of color on hedges, groves, and fields.    And the breath of thy mouth is that bracing air which steels the nerves and muscles of the child of Thuringia, makes his heart open to the influences of song, and persistent in clinging to poetic superstitions, upholds his sense of right, his tendency to antagonism, gives him his artless, loyal nature, and—his delicious bluntness.
The green strips of the fields of young grain were already seen stretching, like broad ribbons, from the verge of the forest down into the valley. The youngest cherry-tree, as well as the gnarled wild pear-tree, stood adorned with snowy blossoms—an equally youthful head upon each trunk—an impartiality of Nature man vainly longs to share. Hyacinths, lilies of the valley, and tulips were blooming cr. the top of the railing of the balcony, and at each side of the glass door large syringa and snowball bushes were growing in tubs.
Felicitas moved the round table into the inclosed portion of the balcony and placed the old mam'selle's comfortable arm-chair beside it. Then she spread a clean napkin on the table and made the coffee. The unfinished sewing was laid by, and when the brass coffee-pot began to hiss and bubble, sending forth a delicious odor of mocha, the old mam'selle sat comfortably in her big armchair, gazing dreamily out at the world beneath, basking; in the bright sunshine of spring.
Felicitas has taken up her work again "Aunt," she said, emphasizing every word, "he is coming tomorrow."
"So I see, my child, by the paper. Among the items of news from Bonn it is stated that 'Professor Hellwig will spend two months in Thuringia for the benefit of his health.' He has become a famous man, Fay!"
"His fame has been easy to win. He knows nothing of the torture that can be caused by sympathy in the performance, of duty. He cuts into the bodies or the souls of his fellow-mortals with equal pleasure."
The old mam'selle looked up at Felicitas in astonishment; this inexpressible bitterness of tone was new to her. "Beware of being unjust, my child!" she said, slowly, after a moment's pause, with the utmost gentleness.
Felicitas looked up quickly—at that moment her brown eyes were almost black.
"I should not know how to begin to think more kindly of him," she replied. "He has sinned heavily against me and I know I should never regret any misfortune that might befall him, and if I could help him to win any blessing I would not lift my finger to do it."
"Fay—"
"Yes, aunt, it is the truth. I have always brought a cheerful face here, because I did not wish to embitter the few brief moments of our intercourse. You have often thought me at peace, when a storm of emotion was raging in my soul. Let yourself be daily, hourly trampled Into the dust, hear your parents reviled as exiles from the mercy of God, and every fancied error of your own denounced as a heritage from them, feel a continual aspiration for a higher life and be thrust down with sneering laughter to the ranks of the ignorant, see your tormentors wear a halo of piety and crush out your very soul in the name of God—and if you can bear all this quietly, if every drop of blood in your veins does not rebel, if you can still forgive, it is not the patient toleration of an angel, but the cowardly slavish submission of a weak nature, that deserves to be trodden under foot!"
Felicitas spoke firmly in a clear, resonant voice. What power over herself this strange young creature possessed! She scarcely raised her hand as the flood of passionate words poured over her lips.
"The thought that I must again confront that stony face excites me more than I can tell you, aunt!" she continued, drawing a long breath. "He will repeat in his heartless, soulless voice all that he has written for nine long years. Like a cruel boy who lets a poor bird flutter at the end of a string, he has prisoned me in this terrible house and thereby made my uncle's will a curse to me. Can anything be more cruel than the way he has treated me? I was expected to have no mental powers, no heart, no sense of honor—such qualities were unbefitting a player's child; her shameful origin could only be expiated by her becoming what they call a handmaid of the Lord, one of the pitiful creatures hemmed in on every side by the narrowest prejudices."
"I hope we are beyond that, my child," said Aunt Cordula, with a significant smile. "But his arrival will be a turning point in your life," she added gravely.
"After various conflicts, Frau Hellwig gave me the consolation today that everything would be over." "Then I need not repeat that you must, wait patiently down below to honor the fast wish of the man who received you into his house and loved you like his own child. Then you will be entirely free and can become your old aunt's nurse openly. We no longer need fear being separated from each other for your guardians below will have resigned their rights."
Felicitas looked up with sparkling eyes, and taking the old mam'selle's little withered hand, pressed it to her lips.
"Do you think worse of me, aunt, now that I have let you look deeper into my heart," she said, gently, "I love my fellow-mortals, and have a very high opinion of them; my struggle against mental death has been partially inspired by the hope of being something more than a beast of burden. If some individuals have ill-treated me, I am far from extending my accusations to the world at large. I do not even distrust the mass of mankind. But I cannot love my enemies and bless those who curse me. If this is a dark spot in my character, I cannot change it, and, aunt—I do not wish to, for this seems to me the narrow boundary line between gentleness and feebleness of character."
Aunt Cordula silently fixed her troubled eyes upon the floor. Had there been a time in her own life when she could not forgive at all, or only after an inexpressible Struggle with herself? She intentionally let the conversation drop, and took up her needle and thread. Both now sewed uninterruptedly, and when twilight came a big bundle was ready. Packed carefully away in the very middle was the silver, the small sum of money the poor carpenter had vainly begged from the "chosen of the Lord," and would now unconsciously receive from the hands of the so-called "infidel."
When Felicitas left the old mam'selle's rooms, there was a great bustle in the front of the mansion. She heard the widow's little girl, Anna, laughing and prattling, and the second story resounded with the loud blows of a hammer. The young girl darted through the corridor leading to the landing. Heinrich was standing on a ladder, fastening garlands over a door. At sight of Felicitas he made a queer grimace in which anger, contempt, but also amusement, contended for the mastery, and after dealing the luckless nails three or four more violent blows, as if he meant to grind them to pap, he came down the steps. Little Anna had been gravely holding the ladder to keep it from falling; but when she saw Felicitas she forgot this important duty, tottered clumsily toward her, and threw her arms affectionately around the young girl's knees. Felicitas lifted her in her arms.
"Don't people act as if there was to be a wedding here tomorrow," said Heinrich, angrily, "and all for a person who will look neither to the right nor the left, and go about all day long as though he had swallowed vinegar." He held up one end of the garland. "Look at the forget-me-not. Well, the people who put them there probably know why they did it. But Fay," he said, crossly, as he saw the little girl press her cheek to Felicitas's face, "do me the favor not to constantly take that sickly little thing in your arms, it hasn't a healthy drop of blood it its body, and may give the disease to you."
Felicitas hastily put her left arm around the little figure and pressed the child pityingly to her breast. The little girl, afraid of Heinrich's angry eyes, hid her ugly little face so that only her fair curls could be seen, and the lovely maiden, with the child in her arms, made the most beautiful picture of a Madonna that could be imagined.
She was about to make an indignant reply, when the garlanded door opened—it had doubtless been ajar, for it slowly swung back, affording a view of the room, which was decked as if for the coming of a bride. Vases filled with flowers stood upon the sill of the single window, and the young widow had just festooned a long garland in graceful curves over the writing-table. She stepped back to view the effect of her work, and in doing so turned her head and perceived the group just outside. Perhaps the resemblance to a Madonna displeased her, for she knit, her delicate eyebrows, called her maid, who was dusting the furniture, and pointed to the open door.
"Get down at once, Anna," cried Rosa, hurrying out "Your mamma has told you not to let anyone hold you. My mistress doesn't like to have Anna fondled and kissed by everybody," she added, pertly, turning to Felicitas, as she took the child and set her on the floor, "she doesn't consider it healthy."
She led the weeping child into the room and shut the door.
"Good Lord! What people those are! " muttered Heinrich, as he went downstairs. "That's what you get for your kindness, Fay! Such people think their diseases are as aristocratic as themselves, and that the like of us ought to be grateful for permission to lay our healthy hands on their infirm bodies! "
Felicitas went silently down the stairs by his side. As they reached the hall a carriage rolled across the marketplace and stopped in front of the house. Ere Heinrich could reach the street door it was flung wide open.   The hall was almost dark, and only the outlines of a man's figure could be seen on the threshold.    A few hurried steps brought the gentleman to the door of the sitting-room, which was opened from within. An exclamation of surprise from Frau Hellwig's lips, and the cold words, "Why, you have grown unpunctual, John; we did not expect you until tomorrow! " were heard, then the door closed, and only the carriage waiting outside and the delicate aroma of a cigar proved the reality of the apparition.
"That was he!" murmured  Felicitas, pressing her hand upon her throbbing heart.
"Now it will begin!" grumbled Heinrich, but instantly stopped, and, with a smile, stood listening at the stairs.
It seemed as if the Wild Huntsman was abroad. This councilor's widow fairly flew down the steps, her fair curls fluttering, and her white dress floating around her light figure like a cloud. Rosa and the limping child were left far behind and did not reach the sitting-room for several minutes later.
"Ah ! Fay, now we know why those forget-me-nots were put into the garland, don't we?" said Heinrich, laughing, as he went out to attend to the traveler's luggage.
CHAPTER XII.
EARLY the next morning Felicitas took advantage of a leisure moment and slipped up to Aunt Cordula, to tell her that Heinrich had succeeded in his errand to the poor carpenter's family. On the landing of the second story Heinrich came toward her, grinning with delight, as he pointed with his thumb over his shoulder at the which, he had decorated with garlands the day before. The flowers had vanished, a shapeless mass of wreath lay on the floor, and several vases of flowers were ranged along the wall.
"Hi! they came down flying!" whispered Heinrich. "One, two, three jerks, and all the forget-me-nots were down. I came up just as he was standing on the ladder."
"Who?"
"The professor. He made an awfully wry face, for I had nailed the things up as though they were to last forever, and he had to pull with a will. But just think, Fay, he shook hands with me today, when I bade him good-morning. I was astonished, I can tell you!"
Felicitas's lip curled—she was on the point of making a sharp reply, but suddenly turned swiftly round the corner of the dark corridor; hasty steps were approaching the door of the room.
When, some time afterward, she was on her way down-stairs from her visit, she heard the sweet tones of the councilor's widow—nothing could be more musical than this woman's voice—say pityingly:
"Oh, the poor flowers!"
"Why did you do all this for me, Adele?" replied a masculine voice; "you know I always abominated such decorations."
It was the same cold tone that had once made such an indelible impression upon little Fay—only the accent was somewhat deeper and blended with annoyance. Felicitas bent over the stair-railing, fairly holding her breath as she looked timidly down. There he was, carefully leading little Anna by the hand step by step down the stairs. Nothing in his personal appearance seemed to harmonize with the title of "Professor."    The young girl had always imagined these representatives of the realm of knowledge to be surrounded by a halo of distinction and majesty; but here she sought these qualities in vain. She saw a muscular, firmly knit figure, angular in movement, whose bearing, though assured, was by no means elegant; there was an obstinate, unyielding air about it—it seemed as if the neck could never bend, even in courteous greeting. And the face did not contradict the impression produced by the figure. He raised his head for a moment, but the features which had formerly borne so little resemblance to the evangelist's picture, had gained no added charm of expression.
A thick, curly fair beard, whose hue bordered slightly upon red, covered the lower portion of his face and extended almost to his breast, and there was a deep  line between the  heavy eyebrows, at  this moment probably more knit than  usual from annoyance at the decorated room.    Yet, though neither aristocratic nor attractive, his person gained an air of distinction from its expression of manly vigor and strength of will.
Now he stooped and lifted the feeble little child in his arms.
"Come, my dear, the poor little legs cannot yet walk easily."
His voice sounded astonishingly gentle and sympathetic.
"But he is not speaking to a 'player's child,'" thought Felicitas, and her heart swelled with bitterness.
The morning hours were very noisy for the quiet house, the bell of the street-door rang constantly. The little town, like every other place, contained plenty of people anxious to catch the sunshine of any renown, without considering that its radiance only served to make their own insignificance more conspicuous. These visits were very welcome to Felicitas, who, though she ardently desired a speedy end to her present life, shrunk from the first interview, and suddenly felt that she did not yet possess sufficient calmness and self-control, every hour's time seemed a boon. But the occupants of the sitting-room, evidently wished to have the scene over as quickly as possible, for dinner had scarcely been eaten when Heinrich appeared in the kitchen, carefully examined Felicitas's dress, brushed a little flour from her dark sleeve, and said, with a somewhat troubled look:
"One of your braids has fallen a little over your ear, Fay, fasten it firmly; the man in there doesn't like anything out of place, you know. You are to go into my old master's room; they are in there. But why are you so frightened—you are white as chalk. Courage, Fay, he can't take your head off."
Felicitas opened the door and stepped quietly into the room formerly occupied by her uncle. He lips and cheeks were still colorless, and. this pallor lent her features for the moment an almost unearthly repose.
Frau Hellwig sat in her arm-chair by the window, precisely as she had done on that stormy morning nine years ago. Beside her, with his back to the door and his hands crossed behind him, stood the man who had despotically condemned the young girl to the position of a servant, who had never permitted the slightest deviation from the line marked out, and who had been, even when far away, always ready to punish without ever asking, "Are you in fault?"
Felicitas had been right in dreading this interview—at the first sight of him resentment and anger overpowered her, and yet never had self-control been more necessary than at this decisive moment.
"Here is Caroline," said Frau Hellwig.
The professor turned, and started in surprise. Probably he had never thought that the player's child, who had once stood in that very spot, stamping her foot and behaving like a little fury, could ever grow up and become calm and quiet. Now he saw a stately maiden, her tall figure proudly erect, though her eyes were fixed upon the floor.
He advanced toward her and made a gesture with his right arm. Was he about to shake hands with her, as he had greeted Heinrich? Her heart fairly quivered at the thought, her slender fingers closed convulsively on the palm of her hand, her arm hung motionless at her side, but she raised her lashes and darted a look of icy hatred at the man opposite to her—it was the gaze with which a bitter foe confronts his opponent. The professor doubtless understood it, he involuntarily drew back and measured her with his keen glance from head to foot.
At this moment some one knocked at the door, and the councilor's widow put in her fair locks and smiling face.
"May I come in?" she asked, in a coaxing tone, and before an answer could be given she entered the room.
"Ah, I'm just in time to attend the trial," she said. "My dear Caroline, you will now see that another will rules yours, and poor Wellner's fate will be decided."
"Let John speak, Adele, I beg," cried Frau Hellwig, in a rather tart, ungracious tone.
"Well, we will keep to this point first," said the professor. Folding his arms across his breast, he leaned against a table behind him. "Will you tell me why you refuse this man's honorable proposal?"
His calm, passionless eyes rested searchingly upon the girl's face.
"Because I despise him.   He is a miserable hypocrite, who uses piety as a cloak for his avarice and greed," she answered in a firm, resolute tone; these blows must be parried by quiet, absolute frankness.
"Oh, what a slander! " cried the councilor's widow, clasping her white hands in indignant grief, and raising her big blue eyes imploringly toward heaven. Frau Hellwig uttered a short, harsh laugh.
"There is a sample of the nature and disposition of your so-called ward, John!" she cried. "Her lips are always ready for words of scorn—I am aware of that. You can make nothing of her—and I have no desire to hear honest people, who come to my house, slandered."
The professor did not answer. While passing his hand over his beard—a hand wonderfully well shaped and slender—his eyes rested on the councilor's widow, who stood like a worshiping seraph. It almost seemed as though he had heard only her exclamation—the corners of his mouth twitched slightly—who could read that peculiar face?
"You have certainly devoted yourself to the study of character during the few weeks of your residence here, Adele!" he said. " To be able to act as advocate in this way—"
"Good heavens, John!" the young widow eagerly interrupted, "surely you don't suppose I have any special interest—" She paused suddenly, and a deep flush crimsoned her cheeks.
The professor's eyes sparkled with evident contempt.
"All the ladies who come here to visit aunt agree that Wellner is an honorable man," she said, apologetically, after a pause. "He has charge of all the mission funds, and devout Christians find no flaw in him."
''And you naturally believe them," replied the professor, curtly. "I do not know the man," he added, turning to Felicitas, "so I cannot say how far your accusation may be just."
"John!" cried Frau Hellwig, angrily.
"Pardon me, mother—we will discuss this at some future time, when we are alone together," he answered, in a gentle, soothing tone.  "Of course no one will put any constraint upon you, he went on, again addressing Felicitas. "Hitherto I have never allowed you the right to decide any matter for yourself; in the first place because I knew you to be under the guidance of a person in whom I have implicit confidence, and secondly, because your temperament is one prone to run into extremes, and always disposed to rebel against its real good. But, in this matter, my power ceases. In many respects I must admit that you are right, for you are young, and he, I hear, is a man advanced in years, therefore unsuited to you. Another obstacle is the difference of station. He now overlooks your origin—but in such cases a time usually comes when a change occurs, any disturbance of the balance of society usually avenges itself."
How sensible all this sounded—and how heartless! He appeared at this moment the very incarnation of all those written directions, which had never lost sight of the proscribed class from whence the player's child had sprung. Leaving his former place, he approached the young girl, whose lips curled with a bitter smile.
"You have been hard to manage," he said, raising his forefinger. "You have neither understood, nor—as I must suppose—desired to win my mother's affection. In the present state of affairs, you cannot desire to remain longer in this house."
"I should like to leave it at once."
"That I can easily believe; you have always shown plainly enough that our strict, conscientious care was unendurable to you.'' His tone now betrayed traces of anger and annoyance. "It has been lost trouble for us to try to repress the vagrant inclinations natural to you. Well, you shall have your wish—but I do not yet consider my task completed. I must first endeavor to find your relatives."
"You had different opinions on this point formerly," said Frau Hellwig contemptuously.
" They have changed in the lapse of time, as you se~, mother," he answered quietly.
Felicitas gazed silently into vacancy. She knew that the attempt would be useless. Aunt Cordula had made it long ago. Four years before ago an appeal had been made through the editor of one of the principal newspapers for news of the juggler, Orlowska, or any of his wife's relatives. This had been copied by all the journals throughout the country, but no one had appeared. Of course the girl could not mention this.
" I will take the necessary steps this very day," the professor continued. " Two months will be sufficient to obtain some information. Until the end of that time you will remain here, as my ward and my mother's servant. If, as I fear, none of your relatives come forward, then—"
"Then," Felicitas "hastily interrupted, "at the end of the time set, I shall beg for an immediate release."
" Oh, that sounds too abominable !" cried the councilor's widow, angrily. " You really behave as if you had experienced nothing but ill-treatment and martyrdom in this peaceful home of Christian charity. What ingratitude !"
" So you think that you can dispense with any further assistance from us ?" asked the professor, without noticing the young widow's outburst of wrath.
" I must decline it."
" Well, then," said the young man, curtly, after a moment's silence—"at the end of two months you shall be free to act your own pleasure."
He turned away and walked toward the window.
"You can go !" said Frau Hellwig, harshly. :   Felicitas left the room.
"So this conflict must last eight weeks longer," she murmured, as she passed through the hall. " It is for life and death!"
CHAPTER XIII.
THREE days had passed since the professor's arrival; three days which had completely transformed the monotonous life in the old house, but contrary to Felicitas's expectation, they had elapsed, to her, very quietly. The professor had not troubled himself any further about her; he seemed desirous of limiting their intercourse to that one interview. She felt relieved, and yet, strangely enough, had never been more humiliated and wounded, pie had passed her several times in the hall without seeing her—true, on these occasions he had been very angry and the expression of vexation by no means improved his features. Spite of his entreaties, Frau Hellwig persisted in sending for him when visitors called on her and desired to see him. He came, when forced to do so, but was always a gruff, unamiable member of the company. Many other people came daily, whom Heinrich took upstairs to the second story—often poorly-clad, wretched-looking creatures—whom Frederica, at any other time, would have turned rudely from the door. Now, to her great wrath, and indeed against Frau Hellwig's wish, they went up the snow-white, freshly cleaned stairs of the stately mansion, and found, without distinction of person, admittance and a hearing. The professor was famed as an oculist—he had made several cures in cases pronounced by other distinguished physicians to be hopeless, and thus the young man's name had become renowned.
Frau Hellwig had ordered Felicitas to take charge of the sweeping and dusting of her son's room. The little apartment seemed completely transformed, since it had been occupied by its present tenant—instead of its former air of comfort it now looked like the cell of a Carthusian friar. The bright chintz curtains had shared the fate of the garlands—they had been dragged down by the professor's hands because they obscured the light; several rudely painted, highly colored battle-pieces had also been removed, and instead, a very old copper-plate engraving which had been banished to a dark corner of ,the hall, hung—spite of its worm-eaten black wooden frame—over the writing-table. It was a perfect masterpiece of the engraver's art—-a picture of a beautiful young mother tenderly wrapping her child in a fur-bordered silk cloak. The woolen table-cover and several embroidered cushions had been banished as " dust-collectors," and on a chest of drawers, instead of the statuettes that had formerly adorned it, stood the professor's books, closely arranged in the most symmetrical order. No turned pages nor battered corners were to be seen, yet they had been constantly used. Their bindings were extremely plain—the color indicated the language la which the work was written—the Latin ones in gray, the German in brown, etc.
" Precisely as he tries to regulate human beings," thought Felicitas, bitterly, the first time she saw the volumes—" and woe betide any one who is dissatisfied with the appointed color!"
The professor took his coffee in the morning with his mother and the charming widow, then he went up to his own room and studied until noon. He had refused the wine Frau Hellwig sent up for his refreshment the day after his arrival, but a carafe of water was always placed beside him. He seemed to avoid being waited on, and never rang his bell. If the water lost its freshness, he went downstairs and refilled the carafe himself.
On the morning of the fourth day letters arrived for the professor. Heinrich had gone out, so Felicitas was sent up with them. She lingered at the door, some one was talking inside—a woman's voice, apparently just ending some long story.
" Doctor Boehm told me about your son's disease of the eyes," said the professor, kindly. " I will see what can be done."
" Oh, Herr Professor, such a famous man as you—" "Never mind that," he interrupted, so harshly that she stopped in terror.   " I will come and look at his eyes tomorrow," he added, more gently.
" But we are very poor people, we earn so little—" " You have already said so twice," the professor again interrupted, somewhat impatiently.   " Pray go ; my time is very much occupied.    If I can help your son, it shall be done ; good-bye !"
The woman came out and Felicitas entered. The professor sat at his writing-table, his pen was already flying swiftly over the paper. But he had seen the young girl come in and, without a word, held out his left hand for the letters. He broke the seal of one while Felicitas was returning to the door.
" By the way," he exclaimed, while reading the letter, "who dusts this room?"
" I do," replied the young girl, stopping. " Well, then, I must beg you not to disturb my writing-table.   It is very unpleasant to me to have a book even moved, and there is one that I cannot find at all.'
Felicitas quietly approached the table, on which lay several piles of books.
"What is the title of the volume?" she asked.
Something akin to a smile flashed across the professor s grave face. Such a question from girlish lips sounded strangely in the physician's study.
"You will hardly be able to find it—it is a French book. Cruveilhier, ' Anatomie du Système Nerveux on the back," he added. The semblance of a smile again appeared.
Felicitas instantly drew out the desired work , it was lying in a pile of French works.
" Here it is," she said. " It was just where you !aid ;t yourself. I never disturb any of these books."'
The professor leaned his left elbow on the table, and turning with a sudden jerk looked the young girl full in the face.
" Do you understand French ?" he asked in a quicK. stern tone.
Felicitas started ; she had betrayed herself She not only understood French, but spoke it easily and fluently. The old mam'selle had taught her mo~t thoroughly-Now she must answer, and at once. Those *tee!-gray eyes were fixed intently upon her face, they wou'd instantly detect a falsehood—she must speak chetrucn
"I have had lessons," she replied,
"Ah, yes, I remember, until you were nine years old- you have recollected part of the instruction," he sail rubbing his forehead with his hand.
Felicitas said nothing.
" That is the unfortunate cause which so utterly frustrated the plans my mother and I had formed for your education," he went on. " You had already acquired ,.00 much knowledge, and because we had our own opin'ons, on this point, you detest us as your tormentors ar,3 Heaven knows what besides. Do you not ?"
Felicitas struggled with herself for a momenc, out -e-sentment conquered. Her white lips answered colaiy. "I have every reason to do so."
For a moment he knit his brows angrily, but per haps he remembered how often, as a physician, he had been forced to listen calmly to many a cross, impatient answer from irritable patients. The young girl before him was ill in mind, he thought, and this idea gave rise to the composure with which he said, " Well, I absolve you from the duplicity of which you are accused—you are more than sincere. For the rest, we will try to console ourselves for your bad opinion."
He turned to his letter again, and Felicitas withdrew. As she stood on the threshold of the open door, he glanced once more at her. The landing was brightly illumined with sunshine—the girl's figure, at the entrance of the darker room, stood out like a picture on a golden background. The outlines of her form still lacked the roundness necessary for the perfection of feminine beauty; but they possessed the delicacy and grace which fairy lore ascribes to the floating, gliding shapes of its wondrous tales. And what marvelous hair ! It usually looked chestnut-brown; but when the sunshine fell upon it, at this instant, it glittered like red gold. It was not at all like the long tresses that had floated down beneath the helmet of the juggler's beautiful wife. It was still rather short, but immensely thick, and the rippling waves were evidently hard to confine in the simple knot worn at the back of the head. Little curls were constantly escaping and resting, as now, on her white neck.
The professor bent over his work again, but the flow of thought, which had been interrupted by the poor mother, could not be immediately recovered. He rubbed his forehead impatiently, and drank a glass of water— but in vain. At last, vexed by so many interruptions, he threw his pen on the table, took his hat, and went downstairs. If the Moor's head, which had served its learned master for a pen-wiper many years, could have opened its grinning mouth still wider, it would surely have done, so in amazement—there lay the pen filled with ink, and' the luckless Moor vainly longed for the pleasure of cleaning its point on its dress. Incredible. The punc-, tilious professor absent-minded!
"Mother," said the professor, entering the sitting-room on his way out, " please do not send that young girl up to me again—let Heinrich come ; if he is away I can wait."
"Ah ! " replied   Frau Hellwig, triumphantly.    " This girl's face has become unendurable to you in three davs; but you condemned me to tolerate her presence ror nine years."
Her son silently shrugged his shoulders, and turned
away.
" The instruction she had received up to the time of my father's death ceased entirely when she entered the parish-school, I suppose?" he asked, glancing back.
" What a foolish question, John ! " replied his mother, angrily- " Didn't I write to you explictly about the matter, and I think I also spoke of it during my visit to Bonn. The school-books were sold, and the exercise-books I burned."
" And with whom has she associated ?"
" Associated ? Why, she has had no companions except Frederica and Heinrich; she wanted no one else." The cruel, spiteful expression appeared on Frau Hell-wig's face, her upper lip curled, showing one of her upper teeth, " Of course, I could not have her eat at my table and sit in my room," she went on. " I always saw in her the creature who had caused alienation between your father and myself; and, besides, she constantly became more disagreeable and insolent to me. But I chose two or three daughters of Christian mechanics for her friends. As you know, she declared that she would have nothing to do with them, that they were wolves in sheep's clothing, etc. Well, you'll see enough of her during the six weeks with which you have burdened your* self."
The professor left the house to take a long walk.
In the afternoon of the same day Frau Hellwig ex, pected several ladies, most of them visitors to the baths, to drink coffee with her in the garden, and as Ferederica was suddenly taken ill, Felicitas was sent to prepare everything. Her arrangements were soon finished. The neatly laid table was standing on the smooth gravel in the shade of a high cypress hedge, and in the kitchen of the summer-house in the garden the Water was bubbling and hissing, all ready to be changed into delicious mocha. The young girl leaned against the open window of the summer-house and gazed sadly out. Everything without was as green and fragrant as though no destroying autumnal blasts had ever shaken the boughs, no winter frost had ever spun its death-dealing network of shining crystal over the fragile blossoms. Years before,, bushes and flower-beds had displayed as brilliant an array o£ varied hues for him whose kind, warm heart was now mouldering into dust; for him whose protecting, helping hand had been extended wherever it was needed—among his flowers as well as among his poor and suffering fellow-mortals. Yet the fair young blossoms smiled just as brightly into the faces of others, and his name was no longer mentioned.
Hither he and the little orphan had fled from unkind looks and angry words—not only in summer, but when spring was still struggling with the retiring forces of winter, A fire blazed merrily in the stove; a thick carpet covered the floor, the bushes outside tapped their boughs, filled with swelling buds, against the warm panes, down which ran, ever and anon, a melting snow-flake, and beyond the wide, bare garden rose the dear old mountain, still half covered with snow, and wearing on its brow its familiar diadem of poplars, Oh, how beloved, how precious were these memories ! And over opposite stood the chestnut trees, their young leaves, as yet scarcely unfolded, hung idly as if half intoxicated by the golden sunlight. What had they once whispered to the child ? Sweet, blissful promises of the future, dreams bright and unshadowed as the cloudless sky above—then dark tempests suddenly gathered over the guiltless head of the player's child, a sharp flash of reality had made the leafy tongues liars.
The sound of men's voices and the creaking of the .garden-gate roused Felicitas from her sad thoughts. Through the northern bay-window she saw the professor, accompanied by another gentleman, enter the garden. They walked slowly toward the summer-house. The visitor had of late been a frequent guest at the Hellwig mansion; he was the son of a very old friend. Of the same age as the professor, he had received his education at the school kept by the Hellwigs' devout relative on the Rhine. Both had then been for a short time fellow-.students at the same university, and though wholly unlike in character and opinions, had always remained friends. While John Hellwig had occupied his professor's chair almost immediately after completing his course at the university, young Frank had gone travelijng, returning only a short time before, at his parent's desire, to pass his legal examination. He was now a lawyer in his native town, awaiting future cases and clients.
As he advanced,Felicitas saw that he was almost the ideal of manly beauty—his features were intelligent and regular, his figure was slender and graceful. The delicate outlines of the profile might have given him an appearance of effeminacy had not the virile vigor of his movements and the masculine breadth of his shoulders precluded any suggestion of this sort.
He removed his cigar from his mouth, examined it a moment, and then flung it contemptuously aside. The professor drew out his cigar-case and offered it to him.
" Heaven forbid ! " cried the lawyer, putting out both hands with a comical gesture of refusal. " I could never think of robbing the poor little heathen in China and the Lord knows where."
The professor smiled.
" So far as I am aware," his companion went on, " you still heroically persevere in your youthful self-sacrifice. You used to allow yourself three cigars a day, but smoke only one, devoting the cost of the other two to missionary purposes."
" I have retained the habit," his friend replied with a quiet smile—" but I use the money for a different object —it goes to my poor patients."
" Impossible ! You, the zealous champion of pious works; the most loyal of all the disciples of our despot on the Rhine ! Is this your allegiance to his teachings, renegade ?"
The professor shrugged his shoulders, stopped, and thoughtfully brushed the ashes from the end of his cigar.
"As a physician, one learns to have different views of mankind and of one's duties toward our fellow-mortals," he said, " I have always cherished the one great purpose of making myself really useful—to attain it, I have b' . u obliged to forget and unlearn ir,r.ny things."
They walked on, and their voices died away. The sun was shining fiercely down upon the gravel-path along which they wandered, and they almost unconscioitsly turned back to the group of acacias whose boughs shaded the stone-flagged path by the summer-house.
" Do not argue over It! " Felicitas heard the professor say in rather more animated tones than usual. "You can not change my opinions. I am always either bored or irritated by the society of women, and, to tell you the truth, my acquaintance as a physician with the so-called 'fair sex' has not tended to increase my esteem for them. What a combination of thoughtlessness and want of character !"
" You are bored in the society of women ! That's very natural," the young lawyer retorted, pausing under the bow-window. " You intentionally seek the most simple, not to say silly women. You abhor modern female education—in many respects not without reason. I, too, am ; no admirer of senseless rattling on the keys of a piano, or foolish prattle in French, but one must not condemn the whole sex. In our times, when the human in.", tellect is daily entering new paths, toiling, creating, and enjoying with the mighty ambition which has recently taken possession of the human race, you want to,,' confine women to the distaff of the Middle Ages, limit their intellectual powers to the narrow range accorded to their own maid-servants—this is not only unjust, but foolish. Women hold in their hands the souls of your sons, and at a time when they are most , susceptible to impressions, receiving them as easily as wax, yet holding them throughout their lives as though they had been graven on iron ! Rouse women to earnest thought, enlarge the circle which egotists like yourself have drawn around their souls, and which you term 'woman's sphere,' and you will see vanity and lack of character disappear."
"My dear friend, that is a path I certainly shall not enter ! " replied the professor, sarcastically, as he slowly walked a few paces forward.
" I am well aware that your views differ from mine; you believe that every desirable quality can be obtained without effort, by merely marrying a religious woman. My respected professor, I, too, desire a religious wife. A woman without religion is a flower without fragrance. But beware I You think her pious, careful, well-rBeared, and while you leave everything without anxiet in her charge, a tyranny is established in your home to which you would never submit if she were a less devout woman. Beneath the cloak of piety all the bad tendencies of the feminine character readily thrive. One may be cruel, revengeful, and thoroughly arrogant, condemning and destroying in blind bigotry much that Is g-ood and beautiful—all in the name of the Lord, and what is termed the interest of God's kingdom."
"You go very far."                                                     ,
" Not at all. You will yet learn to see that the intellect must be duly enlightened and cultivated, and the soul made accessible to the demands of humanity, ere the religion of woman can bestow upon us the happiness it ought to give."
" These are objects I have no desire to follow," replied his friend, coldly. " My profession occupies my whole attention, and so completely fills my life—"
" Aha—and yonder lady ?" asked the young lawyer in a lower tone, pointing toward the entrance of the garden. Behind the grating appeared the councilor's widow, with her child and Frau Hellwig. " Is she not the very embodiment of your ideal?" he continued, with unmistakable sarcasm. " Simple—she always wears white muslin, which, by the way, is extremely becoming to her; pious, as no one could doubt who has seen her in church with her beautiful eyes uplifted in rapture ? She abhors study, knowledge, or thought, because they might interfere with the progress of her knitting or embroidery. She is a suitable match, and you consider equality of station an indispensable requsite for a happy marriage; in short, she is considered the very person whom you—"                                                                            i
" You are out of humor, and you never liked Adele," replied the professor, in an irritated tone.    "I am afraid the chief reason is because she is the daughter of the man who kept you under such rigid discipline.    She  is good-natured, artless, and an excellent mother."
He walked toward the ladies, who were slowly approaching, and greeted them cordially.
CHAPTER XIV.
ERE long the graveled paths were enlivened by graceful female figures, clad in light dresses of gauze or muslin, who flitted to and fro like summer clouds, The dark, stiff cypress hedges formed an admirable background for these charming figures; silvery laughter and lively conversation echoed through the soft air, now and then blended with the resonant tones of a man's voice. The number of invited guests was soon complete, all gathered around the table, and tiny work-baskets were produced.
At a sign from Frau Hellwig, Felicitas approached with the coffee-tray.
" My motto is ' simple and cheap,'" she heard thu councilor's widow say, as she came up. "In summer I never wear anything that costs more than three thalers."
" But you forget, my dear," replied an  elaborately dressed young lady, glancing rather maliciously at the boasted simplicity of the widow's attire, "that you trim; this cheap material with  quantities of  lace which must cost at least three times the price of the dress."
" Pshaw ! who will estimate the cost of this airy cloud in prosaic thalers," cried the young lawyer, amused by the spiteful glances the two ladies were exchanging. " One might suppose it would bear the ladies up to heaven, but for—yes, but, for instance, such heavy gold bracelets, which must infallibly drag the wearer down to earth again."
His eyes rested with evident interest on the wrist of the young widow, who sat near him, She involuntarily started, and for a moment a deep flush crimsoned her cheeks and brow.
" Do you know that I have been irresistibly charmed with your bracelet during the last half hour?" he added. " It is such magnificent antique wormanship. But my curiosity is particularly excited by the inscription inside the wreath."
The young widow's face had already regained its usual delicate coloring. Raising her eyes calmly, she quietly unclasped the bracelet and handed   it to him.
Felicitas was standing just behind the lawyer and could plainly see the bracelet in his hands, Strangely enough, it was in every minutest particular the precise counterpart of the one lying in the old mam'selle's secret drawer, and which had doubtless played some momentous part in the lonely woman's life. Only this one was much smaller, indeed it was rather tight for the young widow's wrist.
" das ir liebe ist anekranc, Die hat gotzesamme geben ul ein wunneclichez leben,"
the young man read fluently. " Strange," he cried, "the verse has no beginning. Oh, it is a fragment from the old ' Minnesingers,' a quotation from Ulrich von Lich-tenstein's poem ' Constant Love,' the whole runs in this way:
"' Wo zwei Lieb' einander meinen Herziglieh in reehter Treu' Und sich Beide so vereinen Dass die Lieb' ist immer neu. Die hat Gott zusammengeben, Auf ein wonniglichea Leben.'
"' Where love dwells with love requited. In hearts tender, loyal, true, And these two are so united That this love is ever new, To these twain our God hath given Bliss whiclimaketh earth a heaven.*
This bracelet undoubtedly has a faithful companion, closely connected with it by the beginning of the verse," he remarked with eager interest. " Have you its mate,
too ?"
" No," replied the councilor's widow, bending over her work, while the ornament passed from hand to
hand.
" How did you get this very remarkable piece of jewelry, Adele ?" asked the professor.
Again a faint flush tinged her cheek.
" Papa gave it to me a little while ago," she replied. " Heaven knows how old it may be !"
She took the bracelet, clasped it on her wrist, and addressed a remark to one of the ladies which entirely changed the course of the conversation.
Felicitas had made the round of the table while the attention of the whole party was fixed upon thebracelet ; the guests had helped themselves noticing who carried the tray. She was on her way back to the kitchen, still entirely unobserved, when at Ihe entreaty of little Anna, who was playing in the shady walk by the summer-house, she stopped a moment, and with her head thrown back and her arms uplifted caught the drooping bough of the acacia and tried to break off a small branch for the child. It is difficult for a faultless female figure to assume an attitude better fitted to display its charms than the one which the ' young girl retained for several minutes. The lawyer hastily seized his eyeglasses — he was rather near sighted — and the dark eyes, fixed in evident amazement on the youthful figure under the acacias were in their turn sharply watched by the councilor's widow, though she was apparently engrossed in her embroidery. After Felicitas had entered the summer-house the young man dropped his eyeglasses — he was evidently about toaddress some question to Frau Hellwig, but the young widow interposed with an inquiry about some accident which had befallen him on one of his journeys, thus cleverly turning his attention to a subject in which he was much in-
terested.
Afterward she rose noiselessly and went to the summer-house. " Dear Caroline," she said, entering the kitchen, "you need not bring out the coffee — here is a coffee-warmer, I see, that it will do capitally. Fill the pot with hot coffee, and I will carry it to the table and pour it out for the guests myself — it will be pleasanter for our visitors, and, to be frank, you look too povery-stricken in that faded calico. How can you appear before gentlemen in that horrible short skirt ? It really is hardly fit to be seen — don't you know it yourself, child ?"
The despised gown was the best the young girl owned — her " Sunday dress." It was outgrown and faded, it is true, but it was spotlessly clean and neatly ironed. That she should now be reproached for whkt she had submitted to in silence and without complaint made her smile bitterly : but she did not answer. Any word of defense would have been superfluous, and, in this case, ridiculous.
When the young widow returned to the table, the conversation she had just attempted to prevent was in full career. "Remarkably beautiful ?" repeated Frau Hellwig with a harsh laugh. " Fie, what can you be thinking of ? Remarkable, I admit, but in a way that is not desirable in any young girl. Look at that pale face and disordered hair. That forward manner and those careless move-ine\Us, the eyes that stare respectable people so boldly in the face, are all inherited from a wretchedly depraved mother. Like seeks like, and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I have learned the truth of this; for nine years I have left no means untried to lead this erring soul to the Lord—but the obdurate girl has baffled all
my efforts."
" Ah, dear aunt, it will soon be over now," said the councilor's widow soothingly, as she poured out and passed around the coffee.  " In a few weeks she will quit your house forever.    I, too, fear that the good seed has fallen upon stony places—there can be no noble impulses in a soul which has hitherto thanklessly rebelled against the restraints imposed by morality and decorum.    But we, who have the good fortune of having descended from pious parents, ought not to judge her too severely—frivolity runs in her blood.   If you continue your travels at some future time," she continued, in a jesting tone, turning to the young lawyer, " you may happen to have the opportunity, in some foreign land, of admiring aunt's ex-servant as a performer on the tight-rope or in the ring." " She has no appearance of it!" said the professor, suddenly, in a calm, firm tone.    Hitherto he had remained silent; his dissent, which expressed marked disapproval, was therefore doubly striking.     Frau Hellwig turned angrily toward her son, and for an instant the young widow's eyes lost the stereotyped gentleness of their expression; but the next moment she shook her curly head, and smiling sweetly, opened her lips, undoubtedly to say something affectionate and charming, but she was interrupted by loud shrieks from Anna.    She turned and uttered a scream of terror.    The child was running as fast as her feeble strength would permit, directly toward her mother ; her right hand clasped tightly in her fright a box of matches, her little dress was blazing.    We have said that the mother uttered a cry of horror; her terrified gaze wandered over the light, inflammable material of which her own toilet was composed, all presence of minddeserted her, her face grew deadly pale, and stretching ' out her arms, as if to protect herself from her child, she / vanished behind the cypress hedge.                           /
The ladies attired in "airy clouds" scattered ill every direction, with shrieks of terror, like a flock pf frightened doves; Frau Hellwig alone went bravely forward to save the child, and the two gentlemen instantly ran toward it; but they were all too late. Felicitas was already on the spot, and wrapping her dress tightly around the little girl tried to smother the flames—but they were too strong, the thin calico gown caught fire. With hasty resolution she clasped the child in her arms, darted across the grass, up the side of the dam, and plunged into the stream. The danger and rescue had been comprised within a very few moments; before the gentlemen had even guessed the young girl's intention, as she rushed past them, the fire was extinguished.
They reached the dam just as Felicitas recovered her footing, and holding the dripping child on her right arm, was seizing with her left the bough of a hazel bush to support herself against the rush of the water, which at this spot was very strong. The widow appeared at the same time with the gentlemen. "My child, save my child!" she cried, in despairing tones. She really seemed on the point of dashing into the water.
"Don't get your shoes damp, Adele; you might take cold," said the professor, with cutting sarcasm, as he swiftly descended the side of the dam, and held out both hands to Felicitas; but he let them slowly fall again, for the young girl's calm face suddenly seemed transformed, a deep line appeared between her eyebrows, and the deadly cold, hostile glance he already knew, met his gaze.
The professor carried the child to the summer house, where, with the help of the bemoaning mother, he undressed it and examined it to discover its probable injuries ; the only burn was on the left hand, where as the little girl now explained, amid tears, the trouble hadoriginated. While her mother was in the kitchen the child had taken the box of matches unobserved ; in lighting one in the garden the flame had caught a rag tied over a little cut on her thumb; she had tried to wipe off the fire on the skirt of her dress, and thus caused the accident.
The frightened ladies now returned. Sympathy and congratulations for the mother and the rescued child Jowed fluently from all the pretty lips, and the " poor angel" was loaded with caresses.
"But, my dear Caroline," said the widow, in a tone of gentle reproof, to the young girl, who stood near her, anxiously awaiting the result of the examination, " could you not have watched Anna, while she was playing in the garden ?"
This reproof was too unjust.
" You had forbidden me to leave the house only a few moments before," replied Felicitas coldly, looking intently at the lady, while an indignant flush crimsoned her cheek.
" Indeed—for what reason, Adele ?" asked Frau Hell-wig, in surprise.
" Good heavens, aunt!" replied the young widow, without any sign of embarrassment, " you can easily understand, if you look at that hair. I wanted to spare her and ourselves th3 impression such carelessness must produce."
Felicitas hastily raised her hands to her head; she was conscious that she had arranged her hair with the utmost care, but the comb, which would never stick firmly in the thick, rebellious locks, had slipped out—it was probably lying at the bottom of the brook. The lovely, loosened tresses, still sprinkled here and there with pearly drops of water, fell like a halo around her shoulders.
" Is this all the gratitude you express to the person who has borne your child unharmed through fire and water ?" asked the young lawyer, sharply. Until now his eyes had rested intently on Felicitas.
" How can you be so unjust to me?" cried the young widow, deeply offended. " Of course a man can never understand a mother's feelings. Against her will, her heart at first stirs her with anger toward any one whose care might have averted danger from a beloved child, - ^.ough she gratefully acknowledges that the final rescue atones for previous neglect. My dear Caroline,"—she turned to the vouna; girl—" I can never repay what youhave done for me today. If I could only show you my gratitude at once." Then, as if yielding to some sudden impulse, she hastily unclasped her bracelet and held it
out to Felicitas.    " Take it—it is of great value to me.
but I would gladly sacrifice the dearest thing I possess
for the sake of my little Anna's safety."
Felicitas, deeply wounded, pushed back the hand that sought to clasp the bracelet on her arm.
" I thank you, she replied, with the haughty lifting of the head which devout humility regarded as so horribly out of place in the player's child ; " I shall never allow myself to be paid for doing my duty to a fellow-creature, far less am I willing to accept any sacrifice. You say yourself that I have merely atoned for neglect, so you can not be under the slightest obligation to me, madame."
Frau Hellwig had already taken the bracelet from the councilor's widow.
" You are out of your senses, Adele !" she said, angrily, without noticing Felicitas's proud reply. " What could the girl do with a thing like this ? Give her a good, serviceable gingham dress, that will be quite enough."
When she paused the young lawyer left the room, took his hat, and went up to the open window where Felicitas was standing.
" I think we are all treating you very cruelly," he said. "First we wound you by offering you gold, and then let you stand there in your wet clothes. I will hurry back to the town and send out everything needful for you and the little incendiary."
He bowed and went away.
"He is a fool!" said Frau Hellwig, angrily, to the' ladies, who were watching his departure with ill-concealtci annoyance and regret.
The professor, absorbed in his attention to the child, had not uttered a word during the preceding conversation, but no one near him could have failed to notice the deep flush that had crimsoned his face from the moment his cousin had offered the bracelet to Felicitas. He was cer« tainly ill-suited to be a " ladies' doctor," or pursue the study of the subtle ailments of the fair sex. He was terribly blunt in his dealings with women. It was certainly perfectly natural that all present should have been greatly alarmed by the child's peril, and should desire to havetheir anxiety about its possible consequences relieved; but the man of science gave only brief, dry answers to the ladies' sympathizing questions ; nay, some especially artless remarks were answered with biting sarcasm.
At last he lef..the child, wrapped in a thick, warm shawl, to their tender hands and walked toward the door, iFelicitas had retreated to the farthest corner of the room, where she believed that she would be entirely unnoticed. She was leaning her shoulders against the wall in an attitude of evident pain; her face was lividly pale, while her knit brows, the fixed expression of her eyes, and her tightly compressed lips showed that she was suffering physical agony—she had a large burn on her arm which was aching intensely.
While in the act of closing the door behind him, the professor again glanced around the room; his eyes rested on the young girl, and, after looking intently at her for a moment, he hastily approached.
" Are you in pain ?" he asked quickly.
" It is endurable," she replied with quivering lipssthat closed again convulsively.
" You are burned ?"
" Yes, on the arm." Spite of her suffering she assumed a repellent attitude, and turned her head toward the window. She could not meet the eyes which, from her childhood, she had detested. He hesitated a moment, but the feeling of duty conquered.
" Will you not accept my help ?" he asked, slowly, in a tone of great kindness.
" I do not wish to trouble you," she answered distantly. " I can relieve myself as soon as I go back to town."
" As you choose," he replied. " But I must remind you that my mother still has some claim upon your time and strength. Therefore you ought not to willfully make yourself ill." He avoided looking at Felicitas while he uttered the last words.
" I do not forget it," she answered, with less irritation; she felt that this allusion to her duty was not made to humiliate her, but evidently to induce her to accept his aid. "I understand our agreement perfectly, "she added, "and you will find me to the last hour in the place assigned me."
" Well, is your medical assistance needed here, John?"
asked the councilor's widow, approaching.
" No," he said curtly. " But what are you doing here, Adele? I just told you that Anna must be taken into the fresh air, and can not understand why you keep her shut up in this close room."
He went out, and the young widow, taking her child in her arms, followed, accompanied by all the ladies. Frau Hellwig had quietly returned to the table long before. Between her last row of knitting and the one now growing beneath her fingers, the lives of two human beings had been in the utmost peril; but this circumstance had had no power to disturb the composure born of steel nerves and a still harder nature.
At last Heinrich appeared with the necessary clothing. He had run so fast that the perspiration was streaming down his forehead. Rosa came with him, and Felicitas received Frau Hellwig's permission to return to town. She knew that Aunt Cordula kept an excellent salve for burns in her well-stocked medicine chest, and while Heinrich kept her watch below, went directly to her rooms.
While the old mam'selle brought out the cooling ointment and gently bandaged the arm, Felicitas related the story of the accident. She spoke quickly and with much emotion. Physical pain and mental agitation had greatly excited her. Yet the young girl's strong will conquered her passionate emotion, until Aunt Cordula gently remarked that she ought not to have refused medical aid. Then the last barrier of her control gave way.
" No, aunt!" she cried suddenly ; "his hand shall not touch me, even to save my life. The class to which I belong is ' detestable ' to him. That word from his lips once mortally wounded my childish heart—never shall I forget it. His duty as a physician made him conquer to-day, for a moment, his aversion to the Pariah—I will have no sacrifice from him."
She stopped exhausted, her face was distorted by the pain her arm was causing.
" He is not destitute of pity," she continued, after a pause. " I know that he denies himself amusements for the sake of his poor patients. In any one else such constant self-sacrifice and unassuming goodness would toucn me to tears, but in him they make me feel as if they were crimes. I know this is base and ignoble, aunt, butI cannot help it. It causes me intense pain, wrath, and resentment to be forced to admire anything in one whom I shall forever hate."
Once having left her vantage ground of self-control and reserve, she complained most bitterly, for the first time, of the young widow's heartless conduct. The pecu» 1-ar hectic flush appeared on the old mam'selle's cheek.
"No wonder—she is Paul Hellwig's daughter!" she exclaimed.
The few words, faintly but sharply uttered, expressed the sternest condemnation. Felicitas listened in surprise. Aunt Cordula had never made the slightest allusion to any member of the Hellwig family—she had received the news of the widow's arrival silently, and apparently with the most complete indifference, so that the young girl had supposed she had never had any acquaintance with the family on the Rhine.
" FrauHellwig calls him 'the chosen of the Lord,' the tireless champion of religion," said Felicitas, hesitatingly, after a short pause. " He must be a stern bigot, one of those gloomy zealots who, living themselves with the most iron consistency, according to God's decrees, for that very reason are inexorable to the faults and weaknesses of their fellow men." A strange, low laugh reached Fehcitas's ear. The old mam'selle had one of those peculiar faces of which we never ask, "Are they beautiful or ugly ?" The winning expression of feminine gentleness and kindness, and a deeply thoughtful mind, here meditated between the rigid laws of beauty and the irregular forms of nature—where the outline deviated from the rule of beauty, expression repaired the defect; but for this very reason this sort of countenance suddenly becomes unfamiliar as soon as its usual harmony is disturbed. At this moment Aunt Cordula looked actually uncanny, her laugh, though low and subdued, was full of scorn; her face, usually so calm and sweet, was almost Medusa-like in its inexpressible bitterness and unutterable contempt. The remark, in connection with the strange manner of the old mam'selle, threw a faint light upon her mysterious past, but not even one clew was visible amid the dark web, and she now made every effort to efface the impression her momentary self-forgetfulness might have produced upon the young girl.
Several large portfolios lay open upon the round toisle in the middle of the room,Felicitas was perfectly farniS-iar with the scattered sheets and papers. Illustrious names—Handel, Gliick, Haydn, and Mozart, and appeared on the coarse yellow paper, often in almost illegible hieroglyphics, written with faded ink. It was Aunt Cordula's manuscript collection of famous composors. When Felicitas entered, the old lady had been turning over the papers, which after having lain undisturbed for years behind the glass doors of the cabinet, exhaled a penetrating odor of mold. Now she quietly resumed her work, replacing them in portfolios with the utmost care. \ The table was gradually cleared, and a thick book of manuscripts, which had been at trie bottom of the pile, appeared. On the title-page was written: " Music of the operetta, ' Wisdom of the Magistracy in Establishing Breweries,' by Johann Sebastian Bach."
The old mam'selle laid hei finger significantly upon the composer's name. " You have never seen this, have you, Fay ?" she asked, with a mournful smile. " It has been lying for many years in the upper drawer of my secret cabinet. This morning all sorts of thoughts flitted through my old brain—all reminding me that it was time for me to prepare for my last journey, and among these preparations I must put this book in the red portfolio. It is probably the only copy in existence—and will be worth its weight in gold some time, my dear Fay. The libretto, written specially for our little town of X——, mainly in the dialect of this place, was discovered nearly two decades ago, and created some stir in the musical world because the music belonging to it was supposed to K have been written by Bach. This music, for which the search is still going on—the melodies, which have slept on this paper for more than a century, are a sort of Nibelungen treasure to musicians, especially as they are the only opera airs Bach ever composed. In 1705, the pupils of the public school here, and some of the citizens, brought out the operetta in the old townhall."
She turned to the title-page, on the back was written, in a delicate hand :
" Score written by the hand of Johann Sebastian Bach;. and received from him as a memento in the year 1707. Gotthelf v. Hirschsprung."
" He sung in the operetta," said the old mam'selle, in a somewhat tremulous voice, pointing to the last name.
" Arid how did the book come into your hands, aunt?"
« By inheritance," fell curtly, almost harshly, from Aunt Cordula's lips, as she put the MS. into the red portfolio.
At such moments it was quite impossible to prolong a conversation the old mam'selle desired to break off. The fragile little figure expressed such resolute reserve, in gesture and bearing, that only the utmost want of tact and the most shameless curiosity could persevere Felicitas cast a longing look at the disappearing MS.; the melodies, which no living being except Aunt Cordula possessed, excited the keenest interest, but she did not venture to ask for a glimpse of them, as she had just avoided mentioning the bracelet in her account of what had happened—never would she have intentionally touched for the second time any chord that vibrated painfully in her old friend's memory.
The old mam'selle opened the piano, and Felicitas went out upon the balcony. The sun was just setting. The view of the distant landscape opposite was veiled by what seemed like arnist of whirling, golden dust, that dazzled the eyes and made the lines of earth and sky blend into a shapeless mass. Like grain cast far and wide by the sower's hand, long shafts of crimson and golden light streamed from the sinking sun, tinging the tops of the forests, clothing the mountains and the blossoming trees in the valley. Certain portions of the scene stood forth in remarkably clear, distant outlines, like a new thought in the human mind. The little village, ••' whose last cottages boldly climbed the mountain slope, were no longer touched by the light, but the top of the high church-tower sparkled brightly, the open doors of the houses showed the red fire-light on the hearths, where the potatoes for the simple evening meal were cooking. The sweet repose of evening brooded over the whole region, and up here the flowers poured forth an intoxicating fragrance; not a breath of air was stirring to bear it away or to lift the leaves and branches still drooping from the heat of the sun. Often a clumsy beetle fell clattering on the balcony, or a pair of swallows, intwst on fulfilling their parental duties, whirred by ; there was no other sound to disturb the solemn stillness. The notfcj; of Beethoven's funeral march floated out into the balcony with a weird melody, but after a few bars Felicitas raised her drooping head and glanced anxiously into the room—that was no mere music. A whisper, faint and 1 spectral, fell upon the young girl's ear with the might of an incomprehensible warning. The hands gliding over the keys were weary, mortally weary, and the notes that echoed beneath their touch were the fluttering pinions of a soul that longed to escape from this world forever.
CHAPTER  XV.
THE baptism by fire and flood was attended by serious consequences to both participants. The child was violently attacked during the night with catarrhicfever,andFelicitas woke the next morning with a severe headache. Nevertheless, she attended to the household duties intrusted to her charge with her usual care ; her wounded arm gave her little trouble—the healing ointment had done its work during the night.
The professor came home in the afternoon. He had just successfully performed an operation on the eyes of one of his patients which no physician had yet ventured to undertake. His gait ana bearing showed the same quiet, cool indifference, which nothing could apparently disturb; the color in his face was not a shade deeper than usual, but any one who was familiar with the expression of his eyes could not have failed to notice the unwonted luster that blazed beneath his bushy brows. So those cold, steel-gray eyes, which seemed made only to search and probe the souls of others, could at certain moments glow with warmth and pleasure.
He stopped at the door of the court-yard and asked Frederica, who was just coming into the house with a pail of water how she felt after her illness.
" Oh, I'm perfectly well again, Herr Professor," she replied putting down the bucket, "but the girl over there "—she pointed across the court-yard to a window on the ground floor—" Caroline must have got some hurt yesterday. I could hardly sleep a bit last night, she talked so fast in her _dreams all right long, and to-day she is going about with a face like scarlet, and—"
"You ought to have told me of this before, Frederica," interrupted the professor, sternly.
"I did tell my mistress, but she said it would soon pass away. She has never had a doctor since she came here, and she is all right—ill weeds grow apace. It's no use to try to treat her kindly," she added, apologetically, noticing the cloud gathering on his face; " from the time ehe was a little child she was always an obstinate thing, holding herself aloof as though she was a princess—she, Lord preserve us, a player's daughter ! Often when I've cooked or baked something especially nice for your mother, I have set aside some of it for her—dear me, we all have kind feelings i But do you suppose she would touch it ?No indeed. I always had to put it way again. You see, Herr Professor, she has behaved just so cv3E" since she was a child. She has never eaten half enough since our master died; its a wonder that she ever grew up so tall. And it's nothing but sheer obstinacy and sinful pride—shedoen't want to accept anything. I heard her with my own ears tell Heinrich that, when she had once left this horrible house, she would work her fingers to the bone, and send every penny she earned to Fran Hellwig until every mouthful she had eaten under this roof was paid for."
The old cook had not noticed how, while she was pouring out her heart, her listener's face had become more and more deeply flushed. She had scarcely finished speaking ere, without a word, he strode across the courtyard to the window she had pointed oufIt was a large bow-window cased in stone, belonging to the room where Felicitas and Frederica slept, and now stood open, revealing the bare, whitewashed walls and scanty furniture. It was the same small, desolate chamber in which the little girl only four years old had endured her first agony of loneliness. There she was now—the obstinate, forsaken girl, who would not eat the bread of chanty, who would work her fingers to the bone to rid herself of every obligation—there was pride which she had preserved with masculine determination in the midst of the deepest humiliations, an energetic soul, sustained by the most indomitable will, all living in the young creature, nestling m an attitude of child-like grace, apparently asleep. Her head was supported by her arm, which rested on thewindow-sill, the satin-like smoothness of her complexion and the glittering radiance of her hair forming a strong contrast to the moldering gray stone. Innocence and grief were expressed in the pure profile, with its softly closed lips and the sorowful droop at the corners of the mouth—the dark lashes still lay heavily on the pale cheeks, concealing the eyes which so often flashed defiant wrath.
The professor noiselessly approached, stood watching her a moment, and then bent over her.
" Felicitas !" fell from his lips in tones full of gentleness and sympathy.
She started up and gazed incredulously into the eyes bent upon her—her name uttered by his lips had acted upon her like an electric shock. She drew up her tall figure, which had just taken an attitude suggestive of the careless ease of childhood, and, with every muscle tense, stood as if ready to repel some anticipated attack.
The professor entirely ignored this transformation.
" I learn from Frederica that you are ill," he said, in the friendly tone generally used by a physician.
" I feel quite well again," she answered, coldly. " Undisturbed rest always restores me."
"H'm—yet your appearance—" he did not finish the sentence, but put out his hand to clasp her wrist. She retreated several paces into the room.
" Be sensible, Felicitas ! " he said, still maintaining the same kindness of tone, but his brow darkened gloomily as the girl stood motionless, folding her arms almost convulsively across her waist. Spite of his thick beard, his angry compression of the lips was plainly visible.
"Well, then, I no longer speak as your physician, but as your guardian," he said, sternly, "and by that authority I command you to come here."
She did not look up, her lashes drooped even lower on her cheeks, now crimsoned by a burning blush, and her chest heaved as though she was undergoing some severe conflict, but she slowly advanced and, with averted face, silently held out her hand, which he clasped gently in his own. The slender little hand, hardened by toil, trembled so violentlythat an expression of deep pity crossed the professor's
grave features.
* Foolish, obstinate child, ypu have compelled me again to treat you harshly," he said, with gentle earnest-"And I had hoped thatwe might part without
another unkind word.    Have you no look for me or for; my mother save one of quenchless hate ?"
" We can reap nothing that we have not sowed !" she replied, in a half stifled tone, trying to withdraw her hand from his hold, and gazing with as much horror at the fingers that grasped her wrist in a gentle, yet powerful clasp, as though they had been red-hot
He hurriedly dropped her hand. Gentleness and pity vanished from his face, he struck angrily with his cane at some innocent blades of grass growing in the chinks between the stones. Felicitas breathed more freely; this harsh, stern manner suited him ; his tone of pity was. horrible to her.
" Always the same reproach," he said, coldly, at last. " Your overweening pride may have been often wounded, but it was our duty to bring you up with moderate views. I can accept your hatred calmly, for I acted solely for your best good. As to my mother—well, her love may be hard to win, I will not dispute that, but she is incorruptibly just, and her fear of God would never have allowed her to let any real harm or injustice befall you. You are about to go out into the world and take care of yourself. A yielding disposition is especially needful in your position. How will it be possible for you to associate with others while you so obstinately cling to your false views of life? How can , you ever win affection with those defiant eyes ?" Felicitas ?raised her long lashes and looked at him with a calm, firm gaze.
" If any one can show me that my opinions are opposed to morality and reason, I will willingly resign them," she answered, in her low, expressive voice. " But I know that I do not stand alone in the belief that no person, whover he may be, possesses the right to condemn another to intellectual death; I know that thousands feel, with me, how unjust and culpable it is to deny any human soul the gratification of its inmost yearnings, merely because it swells in the body of one. of humble birth. I shall go out into the world with confidence, for I have faith in mankind, and hope to find some human beings whom I certainly shall not treat with defiance. An unfortunate girl like myself, who is forced to live among heartless people, has no weapon except her pride, no support except the consciousness that she, too, is God's child, and a sharer of His spirit. I know that the distinctions of human society have no existence in His eyes—they are mere mortal inventions, and the more narrow and pitiful the soul, the more closely does it cling to them."
She turned slowly and vanished through the door leading to the servants' room, while he stood gazing after her. He drew his hat down over his forehead, and went back to the house. No one could guess what thoughts were passing through the drooping head, but the light that had sparkled in his eyes when he returned home had faded—a gloomy shadow brooded over the furrowed brow.
The young lawyer and Heinrich were standing together in the hall. The professor started, as though waking from a sleep, when their voices fell upon his ear.
" So you have patients in the house, professor ? " said the lawyer, shaking hands with him. " The fire has had bad consequences, I hear. The child—"
" Has a severe attack of catarrhic fever," the professor dryly interrupted.
He was evidently in no mood for further explanations.
" Oh, Herr Professor, that doesn't matter much ! " said Heinrich. " The child is a poor, sickly little thing— but when a girl like Fay, who never has an ache all the year round, hangs her head, anybody might be anxious."
" Well, I certainly haven't seen much hanging of the head," said the professor, in an unusually sharp tone— one could see the corners of his mouth twitching ironically under his thick beard. "Her head is as erect as anybody's, depend upon that, Htinrich\ "
He went up the stairs with his friend. At the top little Anna came toward them, barefoot, and in her nightdress. Scarlet spots were glowing on her poor, swollen lace, and her eves were red with weeping.
"Mamma's gone;and Rosa's gone, and Anna wants a drink of water ! " she cried to the professor.    Much
alarmed he took her in his arms and carried her back
into the bedroom.     No one was there.    He angrily calle 'i. tne maid.    A   distant door opened, and Rosa came running out with flushed face,  holding a flat-iron in her hand. In the room she had left a huge pit of snow-white muslin was visible on the ironing-board
« Where have you been ? How can you leave this child alone ?" he exclaimed.
" Oh, Herr Professor, I can't be in two places at once," replied the girl, almost crying with anger. " My mistress pust always have a fresh white muslin dress every morning ,—there's no end to the washing and ironing—if you onlj knew the work such gowns make—"
She stopped, for the young lawyer burst into a load laugh.
" Oho ! there's the lady in simple white muslin," he /;ried, fairly holding his sides ; the professor's gloomy, embarrassed face seemed to him extremely comical.
" My mistress thought," Rosa went on, " that Anna had only a feverish cold, and might be left alone for half an hour ; her playthings were all on her little bed, in reach—"
" And where is my cousin ? the professor harshly in-terrupted.
" She has gone with Frau Hellwig to a meeting of the Missionary Society."
" Indeed !" He cut short any further explanation— he looked very angry. " Now go back and finish that trash I" he continued, pointing to the door from which she had come; then he called Frederica, but the old cook had both hands in fresh dough, and sent Felicitas.
The young girl came up the stairs, The faint flush caused by her recent emotion still lingered on her cheek, but her eyes rested calmly upon the professor's wrathful face. _ She stood still in an attitude of quiet dignity, awaiting his commands. It evidently cost him a violent struggle to address her.
" Little Anna has no one to take care of her—will you iitay until her mother returns ?" he asked, at last, and a Watchful ear could not have failed to notice the effort it 'required to force his voice into a gentle tone
"Very willingly," she answered, without the (east embarrassment. " There is but one obstacle. The lady does net like to have her little daughter with me. If you will assume the responsibility, I am ready."
"Of course I will."
Felicitas instantly went into the sleeping-room and shut the door. The young lawyer looked after her with sparkling eyes.
" Heinrich, in his queer way, calls her ' Fay,' " he said to the professor, as the two gentlemen went up, to the  second  story, "and oddly as the name sounds
from  his  blunt  lips, it  suits her wonderfully.    I must
honestly  confess that I don't understand how you and
your mother had the courage to place this remarkable
girl on the same par as your old cook and yonder pert
lady's-maid."
" Oh, you think we ought to have dressed her in silk and velvet," cried the professor, more excited than his friend had ever seen him. "As the house of Hellwig was denied a daughter, the vacant place could not, in your opinion, have been better filled than by this Fay, or rather sphinx,' as I call her. You have always been an enthusiast. You are, however, entirely at liberty " his voice trembled with emotion—" to make the juggler's daughter your wife. I will bestow my blessing on the nuptials, as her guardian."
The young lawyer's face crimsoned to the roots of the fair locks waving on his brow. For a moment he gazed out of the window down into the market-place—while talking they had entered the professor's ' room—thea turned with a smile, and answered with a slight touch of sarrism :
* From what I can judge of that girl's character she •will hardly trouble herself about your blessing, I should only need to gain her own consent; and if you expect to frighten rne by the words 'juggler's daughter,'you are greatly mistaken, my esteemed professor. Of course, with your views, such an idea would upset your nerves entire fy. A player's child, with her warm heart, and the cool blood of the old line of merchant ancestors that flows slowly through your veins—such a marriage would never do. Those people would turn in their graves.
He pointed through the open door into the large room adjoining. There on the wall hung a long row of admirably painted oil-portraits—stately, corpulent figures, with glittering diamonds on their fingers and in their neatly tied cravats. These., were the various burgomasters and councilors of commerce who had formerly borne the name of Hellwig.
The professor walked across his room and entered
the apartment—the stings of his friend's sarcasm seemed
to glide off from him.     Folding his   arms across  his
breast, he paced up and down several times under the
portraits.
"They all led blameless lives," he said, suddenly stopping.
"Did they all maintain this stainless external dignity without secret struggles? I do not believe it. Human nature is contradictory, and rebels most obstinately where it ought to submit. All these sacrifices have become stones in a solid structure, and this edifice is called the ' House of Hellwig.' Have they been demanded and made only to have some base descendant overthrow the whole like a house of cards? Heaven forbid !"
It almost seemed as if these words had decided some mental conflict, for the unusual irritation his friend had noticed with surprise had disappeared when he returned to his own room.
Felicitas had been sitting by the child's bedside about half an hour, when the councilor's widow returned. Her face instantly darkened at the sight of the young girl.
" Why are you here, Caroline ?" she asked, sharply, . throwing her sunshade upon the sofa and hurriedly drawing off her gloves. "I certainly did not request this J service."
" But I did," said the professor, sternly, suddenly appearing behind her on the threshold of the open door. " Your child needed watching ; she ran out to me, with bare feet, as I came upstairs/'
" Impossible ! Why, Anna, how could you be so disobedient ?"
Are you really in doubt, Adele, as to the proper person to reprove in this case ?" asked the professor, still controlling himself, though there was a tone of indigna>tion in his voice.
" Dear me, I'm at my wits' end with this careless creafc. lire Rosa. She had nothing in the world to do except take care of the child, and yet I know my back was hardly turned before she was gaping out of the window or staring into the looking-glass."
" She happens to be standing at the ironing-table, toiling in the sweat of her brow at a dress which you must a tout prix put on to-morrow," interrupted the professor, emphasizing every word with cutting scorn.
The young widow started. For an instant her face expressed the most intense confusion, but she quickly recovered herself.
"Oh, how absurd !" she cried, knitting her white brow angrily, " she entirely misunderstood me—that misfortune often happens."
" Well," he said, " we will let it pass as a misunderstanding. But how could you leave your sick child in the care of a person you have just accused of utter negligence ?"
" John, I obeyed the summons of a sacred duty !" she replied, impressively, raising her lovely eyes to heaven.
" Your most sacred duty is your duty as a mother !" he exclaimed, now thoroughly angry. " I did not send you here to attend missionary meetings, but solely for the health of the child."
" Why, John, suppose aunt and papa should hear you. You used to have very different views."
" I admit it, but individual reflection will always lead us to the one fundamental principle of morality, that we should use our whole powers in the sphere where Providence has placed us. If you could count a hundred pagan children saved by your instrumentality, it would not relieve one jot of the reproach that must rest upon you for neglecting your own daughter."
The young mother's face glowed like a peony. But, after a struggle, she succeeded in maintaining her usual gentleness.
Don't be so harsh to me, John !" she pleaded. " Remember, I am only a weak woman, but I always mean to do what is right. If I have erred, it was principally on account of your dear mother. She wished me to go with her. But it shall not occur again."
She had spoken in the sweetest tones of her musicalvoice, and now held out her hand to the  professor. Strange, the grave man blushed like a girl.    Doubtless he was unconscious of the side-glance cast toward the young figure sitting with downcast eyes by the child's bed, as he took the little hand in two fingers and instantly let it fall again.    The dove-like eyes, which had rested so beseechingly on his face, flashed, and she turned pale, but calmness was bravely maintained. Taking her child's head between her hands she kissed her feverish forehead. " I can take charge of Anna now, and thank you most '. warmly, dear Caroline, for filling my place here," she ' said, kindly, to Felicitas.
The young girl rose, but the child began to cry bitterly and clasped both little hands tightly around her arm. The professor felt her pulse.
" She is in a violent fever, I cannot allow her to be excited," he said, kindly, though formally, to Felicitas. "Will you take the trouble to remain until she falls asleep ?"
She silently resumed her place, and he went out of the room. At the same time the councilor's widow hurried into her sitting-room, letting the door close behind her somewhat noisily. Felicitas heard her walking rapidly up and down. Suddenly there was a sharp noise, like the tearing of some texture. Anna started up and began to tremble; the noise was repeated several times in quick succession.
" Mamma, Anna will be good, Anna won't behave so again. Don't whip Anna, mamma!" cried the child suddenly.
At this moment Rosa entered. Her blooming face looked pale and startled.
" She is tearing something to bits again. I heard her on the landing," she whispered to Felicitas, with an expression of great contempt. " Lie still, dear," she murmured, soothingly, to the child ; " mamma won't hurt you. She isn't coming out now, and will soon be kind again."
A door shut, the councilor's widow had evidently left the room. Rosa went in and soon came back with a bunch of white rags in her hand—the remnants of a cam-brie handkerchief.
" When she gets into a rage she does not know what she is doing !" grumbled the maid. " She tears whatever she happens to have in her hands, and strikes without mercy. Yonder poor little creature knows that well enough."
Felicitas clasped the child in her arms, as if to protect her from her mother's passionate anger; but her anxiety was groundless. The widow's voice was heard on the landing in its usual bell-like clearness, as she talked gayly with the lawyer on his way down-stairs, and when, soon after, she entered the bedroom, she looked even more beautiful and winning than ever. The flush evoked by anger still lingered as a delicate tinge of rose upon her cheek, and who would ever have dreamed of attributing the enhanced brilliancy of the eyes in that sweet face to anything save some lofty emotion of a beautiful soul ?
CHAPTER XVI.
WHEN 'Felicitas, at the professor's request, resumed her seat by the bed of the little sufferer, she had not supposed that her position as nurse was to be occupied for many days. But the child became dangerously ill, and would not let either her mother or Rosa come near her. She would permit no one to touch her or give her medicine, except the professor and Felicitas. In her feverish ravings the torn handkerchief played a conspicuous part. The professor listened in astonishment to the child's cries of terror, and his searching questions often called a blush of mingled embarrassment and alarm into his cousin's cheeks. But the latter, supported by Rosa, always asserted that Anna must have had some bad dream.
Felicitas soon became familiar with her duties as nurse, for though her task was at first made more difficult by the necessity of hourly intercourse with the professor, the anxiety for the child's life which they both felt helped her to master the awkwardness of the situation far more quickly than she had expected. It seemed strange to herself to find that she so readily understood him in his professional character. While to others, even to the child's mother, his manner appeared impenetrable, she instantly knew whether he detected an increase of danger or saw ground for hope. Therefore, he rarely needed to utter any word of explanation to make her perceive rccive what was required at the moment. He watched himself on alternate nights, and during the day passed a great deal of time in the sick-room, For hours he sat patiently beside the little bed, laying first one hand and then the other on the child's forehead. The little girl v/ould He quiet and motionless—there was evidently something peculiarly soothing in his touch.
Felicitas angrily tried to shake off the thoughts that; stole over her as, sitting at no great distance from him, she watched him in silence. There were the same hard, irregular lines in the face, the same massive brow, from which the thick hair was brushed smoothly back, the same eyes, the same voice, everything precisely as it had been when he was the terror of her childhood, but there was no trace of the expression of gloomy asceticism which had robbed the face of its youthfulness and made it so repellent. A mild light seemed to irradiate the intellectual forehead, and when she heard him speak in soothing tones to the excited child, she could not help owning that he fully appreciated the sacredness of his calling. He did not only stand coldly watching the sufferings of others, did not seek merely to save the body—the terrified soul found a support in him, read sympathy in his eyes, and drew courage and consolation from hh voice. He had a rare gift of language. Words, and toues were at his command that stirred the young girl's heart like an electric shock. Who at such moments thought of his angular movements, his repellent manner in society. Here he possessed the beauty of goodness—• he was a man conscious of great moral power—the ever-thinking, tireless mediator between the determined foes, Life and Death, Yet, spite of these softening thoughts which passed through Felicitas's mind, her final conclusion was always the same: " He can think and feel humanely, can,pity the helpless condition of the humblest of_his fellow-mortals, therefore the juggler's outlawed child has double cause to abhor him, for to her he has been a pitiless oppressor, a prejudiced, unjust judge."
During their daily intercourse the professor had never again adopted the gentle tone that was so terrible to her, and against which she armed herself with the weapons of defiance and pride. He retained the coldly courteous manner he had assumed, since their last conversation, and this was evinced in bearing rather than in words for, except to ask the most indispensable questions, he barely addressed her. He had a hard position to fill toward the councilor's widow. At first she had behaved as if she were frantic, and would not consent to have Felicitas fill her place beside the child's sick-bed; it required all his determination in order to calm her. Then she could not be kept from constantly putting in at the door the lovely curly head the child so dreaded—especially if her cousin and Felicitas chanced to be alone in the room. She wept and wrung her snowy hands. There is no human face that looks beautiful amid a torrent of tears which spring from real agony, no matter what poets may say about "heroines bewitching 'mid their tears"—but not a line was deepened in the blooming oval of her countenance, not a single muscle twitched convulsively; no disfiguring red blotches marred the transparent complexion, the pearly tears trickled gently-down the cheeks. It was an exquisitely perfect weeping as ever artist could imagine in the most beautiful Mater Dolorosa. What a contrast she afforded to the pale, careworn, anxious face of the young girl beside the bed! Every evening regularly she appeared in an elegant wrapper, a delicate lace cap shading the bewitching face, and a religious book in her hand, and said that she was going to watch. The same discussion always took place between her and her cousin. She repeated precisely the same phrases about what she termed the interference with her maternal rights, and went away, gently weeping and complaining, to rise the next morning as fresh as a May rose.
It was the ninth evening of Anna's illness. The child lay in a dull stupor. From time to time an unintelligible murmur escaped her lips. The professor had been sitting a long time beside the little bed with his anxious face hidden by his clasped hands; suddenly he rose and beckoned to Felicitas to come into the next room.
"You watched all last night, and have not allowed yourself a moment's rest either yesterday or today, yet I am going to ask a further sacrifice from you," he said. "The result will be determined tonight. I might let my cousin or Rosa stay with the child, for she is unconscious, but I need beside me entire devotion and thoughtfulness. Will you watch in the child's chamber again tonight?
"Yes."
"But you will probably be compelled to undergo hours of anxiety—do you feel strong enough?"
"Yes; love for the child gives me strength."
"Have you such firm confidence in your will?"
His voice assumed that dreaded tone of gentleness.
"It has never yet deserted me," she replied, her eyes, hitherto so calm, growing cold and repellent.
Night closed in; a sweet, still, spring night. The full, bright light of the moon was flooding the sleeping town; it hovered as if on silvery wings into the large room of the merchant's house, touching the old portraits, and breathing a strange life into their still features. The flowers on the carpet bloomed anew in the pallid light, and myriads of silver sparks flashed from the crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling. But within the dim sick-room a terrible power was brooding over the narrow bed, approaching nearer and nearer the struggling little form—the child was lying in violent convulsions. The professor sat beside her, his eyes fixed steadily upon the quivering limbs and distorted face.
The clock outside struck twelve with slow, loud strokes. Felicitas, who was sitting silently at the foot of the bed, shuddered; it seemed as if one of those mighty, clanging notes must bear away the little one's soul. And, in truth, the convulsed limbs relaxed, the small clinched hands opened and fell wearily on the coverlet, and in a few moments more the head rested quietly on the pillow. The professor bent over the bed—ten anxious moments passed, then he raised his head and whispered in an agitated tone, "I think she will live."
The young girl leaned anxiously over her little charge, heard her deep, calm breathing, and saw the weary limbs sink into a comfortable attitude of repose. Then she rose noiselessly and went leisurely out into the next room. The dawn already blended, swept past her with its refreshing touch: she leaned her tired head against the stone casement of the window, while her folded hands hung loosely down. On the sill stood a tea-rose bush that bore a single exquisite flower, doubly pale in the white moonlight, it swayed lightly above the girl's snowy forehead and glittering hair. Felicitas's pulses were throbbing feverishly. No wonder; within yonder dark, close room, death had been very near a human life ; the tension of her nerves during the last few hours had been frightful— no sound save the child's sharp, shrill cries had reached her ears; she had seen only the convulsed form, and the pale, silent face of the physician, who had asked the assistance she could give merely by signs and glances. Four narrow walls had surrounded them, united in the exercise of duty and compassion, while a deep gulf of hatred and prejudice yawned between them.
The young girl's dry, burning eyes gazed through the window at the moonlit front of the town-hall. The statues on each side of the clock—the Virgin and St. Boniface—stood forth in ghostly relief from their niches. What was the use of their standing protectingly there? The tragedy had happened just beneath them. Those three tall windows, now glittering with a silvery luster, had sent forth on that fatal evening the red glow of a fairy-like illumination, and yonder, where the moonlight was shimmering on the floor, that marvelously beautiful woman had. fearlessly confronted the densely crowded audience and the muzzles of the deadly weapons ; but beneath her armor a mother's heart was throbbing tenderly, for at the inn lay her little child for whom she must toil, for whose sake she appeared before these staring eyes until—the last six shots crashed and she fell dying.
The professor came out of the sick-chamber and closed the door noiselessly behind him. Then he went up to Felicitas, who was still standing motionless at the window.
"Anna is sleeping quietly," he said, "I will stay with her the remainder of the night—now go and rest."
Hardly waiting for him to finish his sentence, Felicitas instantly left the window-niche and was silently passing him to go out of the room.
"I think we ought not to part so coldly to-ight!" he said, in a low tone—it almost seemed as though he broke the spell of silence reluctantly.   "We have stood loyally by each other during these last few days, like two faithful comrades, trying to save a human life from the grasp of death—consider that!" he added, warmly. "In a few weeks we shall part, and our paths in life will never cross again.    I will not deny you the satisfaction of admitting that the strength of your own character has refuted mud of the prejudice and dislike I have entertained toward you for nine years.    Only one dark spot, your wicked hatred and obstinacy, remains to recall the willful child, who once called forth all my harshness and severity."
Felicitas had advanced several paces toward him. The moonlight flooded her whole figure. As she stood with her haughty head turned back over her shoulder toward him while her face, with its firmly compressed lips, grew eve: more death-like in its pallor, there was the most implacable hostility in her whole bearing.
"In all the diseases of the human body you inquire into causes before you form your opinion," she answered "But you never thought it worth while to investigate the sources of the waywardness you desired to correct in a human soul. You judged blindly, from mere suggestions and thus committed as great a crime as though you had allowed one of your patients to perish from neglect. Tear from a grown man his ideal, the radiant future o which he had long dreamed, and though he may be the most devout and pious of mortal creatures, he will not in the first flush of disappointment, fold his hands ii quiet submission—how much less a child of nine year old, who had been constantly looking forward to the day when she should again see her idolized mother, whose soul cherished no dream, no hope, that was not in some way associated with this meeting."                                
She paused, but no word escaped the professor's lips; he did not even glance at her. At the commencement of her accusation he had once hastily stretched out his arm as though he wished to interrupt her, but as she went on his listening attitude became more and more motionless; he did not even raise his hand to stroke his beard, a gesture very frequent when his attention was arrested.
"My uncle had kept me in happy ignorance," she continued, after a pause, "but he died, and with him all pity left this house. That morning I had been for the first time to my mother's grave—I had learned her horrible death only the night before—they had told me, at the same time, that the juggler's wife was a lost creature, whom even the merciful God would not admit into His heaven—"
"Why did you not tell me all this then?" interrupted the professor, in a hollow tone.
Felicitas, out of regard for the sleeping child, had spoken in a suppressed tone, which only heightened the intensity of resentment pervading her whole manner.    Nor did she raise her voice as she now turned her beautiful flushed face fully toward him. "Why did I not tell you all this then?" she repeated.    "Because you had just declared that the class to which I belonged was unutterably detestable to you, and that there was frivolity in my blood." The professor covered his eyes with his hand. "Though I was  so young,  and my first bitter experience of sorrow was so fresh in my heart, I knew at that moment that I should find neither sympathy nor pity. And have you ever felt any sympathy or pity for the player's child?" she continued, advancing a step nearer, and emphasizing every word with inexpressible   bitterness. "Have   you ever thought that the creature you sought to force under the yoke of servitude might possibly have a mind? Have you not racked her soul a thousand times   by   your   endeavor   to   stifle   every   loftier aspiration,   every expression   of suitable independence, every yearning for intellectual   culture? Do not imagine that I resent your rearing me to labor —even the hardest toil can never bring disgrace." "Never, Felicitas?" The young girl shook her head. "Then I must submit to your decision," he said, with a faint smile, which, probably much against his will, was strangely sorrowful.   "I have offended you mortally, and yet, I could not do otherwise." Pie paced up and down the floor several times. "To defend my motives I must touch a sensitive spot in your nature," he hastily continued "You are entirely without property, and of —despised birth. You are compelled to support yourself. If I had given you a better education it would, have been cruel to degrade you to the level of a servant—or do you believe that any family would consent toreceive a juggler's daughter as a governess for their children? Do you not know that a man"—he stopped a moment, and drew a long, sighing breath, while a livid pallor overspread his face—"yes, that a man in the upper circles, who might wish to unite his life to yours, would be forced to make great sacrifices, both of his own prejudices and in his relations to society? What a humiliation that would be to your proud heart. These are the social laws which you despise, but to which the majority of men submit with unspeakable mental struggles, maintaining them out of reverence for the past, and because they deem them to be a political necessity. I, too, must submit—we do not all bear our secret experiences written on our foreheads—and from me these laws demand resignation and—a life of loneliness."
He was silent. Felicitas felt a strange thrill as she listened in the solemn midnight to the inmost secret of this man's close-shut heart, uttered so hastily, with quivering lips, almost against his will. Doubtless he loved some woman far above him in social station. Though confronting him with wrath and hatred, she felt an emotion of sorrow never experienced before. Was it possible that she could experience any emotion of pity for him? Had she such culpable weakness of character; she, who but a short time ago had said so positively that, no matter what misfortune might befall him, she would have no compassion. And, after all, there was no occasion to pity him—why did he fold his hands submissively in his lap, instead of striving with manly energy to win the lofty prize?
"Well, Felicitas, have you no answer?" he asked. "Or are you again offended by my explanation, which I could not avoid?"
"No," she coldly replied. "These are your personal opinions—I have not the slightest desire to see them Altered. But you can not deprive me of the belief that there are kind, unprejudiced hearts, who will recognize an honest nature and upright intentions even in a juggler's daughter. Why should I answer? We should never reach the end of our discussion. You stand on the pinnacle of so-called aristocracy, and impose fetters on yourself, lest you might fall from this vantage-ground. I belong to the class despised by your caste, because we believe that thought is free. You say yourself that our paths in life will soon diverge forever, but we are already widely sundered in mind. Have you any other directions for me about the sick child?"
He shook his head, and ere he could add another word Felicitas had left the room.
CHAPTER  XVII.
ANNA'S convalescence was rapid, but Felicitas was not yet released from her office of nurse. The little one, usually so quiet and patient, grew cross and excited as soon as the young girl left the room, and the mother could do nothing except beg Felicitas to stay with the child until her health was fully restored. The young widow undoubtedly did this with a lighter heart because the professor no longer remained any length of time in the sick-chamber. He came every morning, but his visits lasted scarcely three minutes. Often he took the child in his arms and carried her up and down the sunny, sheltered court-yard—but with these exceptions he was -scarcely seen in the house.  It seemed as if he had been suddenly seized with a perfect passion for the garden; his method of life was entirely changed; he no longer spent the early hours in his rooms—whoever wished to see him was sent out to the garden. Frau Hellwig, strange to say, submitted to this freak, as she termed the sudden transformation, and, to the widow's great satisfaction, arranged to have their principal meals usually served in the garden. The old house thus became at times even more quiet than before; the family often did not come back until ten o'clock in the evening. But it frequently happened that the professor returned earlier and alone. Then Felicitas heard him slowly ascend the stairs, and a singular incident almost always occurred. He would walk several paces mechanically toward the sick-room, then stop short in the middle of the landing, as if recollecting himself, and ascend the second flight at a much more rapid pace. His room was directly over little Anna's, and on these evenings he did not sit quietly down to his books, but paced restlessly to and fro for hours. This solitary striding up and down always excited Felicitas—she connected it with his midnight confession.
Anna usually went to sleep about eight o'clock, then. Rosa took Felicitas's place by the child's bed, and now came the young girl's hours of rest—she went up to the rooms under the roof. Aunt Cordula's recent attack of weakness and premonition of death seemed to have passed away; she was more cheerful than ever, and talked as gayly as a child about the near approach of the time when she should have Felicitas entirely to herself. She usually kept her supper waiting for the young girl. The neatly arranged table stood in the balcony, some favorite dainty was always provided for Felicitas, and a package of new periodicals waited to be read aloud. During these few brief hours of recreation every thing that had recently oppressed and grieved Felicitas's heart would fade away —often to her own astonishment. She never mentioned anything that happened in the front of the house; the old mam'selle, true to her custom, never incited her to make any communication, so Felicitas's secret struggles, inexplicable even to herself, readily passed out of notice.
One beautiful sunny afternoon Felicitas was sitting alone with Anna—the whole house was still as a church. Frau Hellwig and the councilor's widow had gone out to pay some visits, and the professor was doubtless in the garden; for there was no sign of life heard in the second story. The child had been playing a long while, but now she lay back wearily on the bed and said, coaxingly:
"Sing to me, dear Caroline!"
The child was passionately fond of hearing Felicitas sing. The young girl had a contralto voice—its notes had a clear, bell-like sound, which is peculiar to the violoncello; the tone which melts into the air without any sharpness of accent and has a tinge of gentle melancholy, the expression of a fathomless depth of thought. The old mam'selle, with her rare knowledge of music and the careful cultivation her own talent had received from able masters, had given admirable training to this exquisite organ. Feiicitas sung German songs in a thoroughly classic style. She had found that she could always soothe the little girl by beginning a sustained melody in a low tone, and gradually allowing her voice to attain its full power—never doing so, of course if she knew that unfriendly ears were near.
"Thou foliage new, them grass so fresh!"
Schumann's song now rang through the quiet sick-room with the chaste expression that only the lips of a pure young girl could lend it. Felicitas sung the first verse with pathetic simplicity and suppressed power; but with the words:
"Forth from mankind I now must go, No human word can ease my woe," her resonant voice pealed out like the music of an organ. Just at that moment in the professor's room above a chair was hurled aside, hasty steps approached the door, and a bell rang shrilly and violently through the quiet house. It was the first time the bell in the professor's study had ever been used. Frederica hurried up the two flights with breathless speed, and Felicitas stopped in mortal terror. In a few minutes the old cook came down again and entered the sick-room.
"The Herr Professor sends word that you must not sing any more—he can't study," she said, in her harsh, unfeeling way.    "He was as white as chalk and could hardly speak for rage… Why do you do such stupid things?   I never heard anything like it in all my life—you sing just like a man, and—Lord have mercy on us—what songs they are!   Just fit for a night-watch, man!    I don't know what sort of a girl you can be!    I could sing, too, when I was young. But they were beautiful songs, 'Life let us cherish' and 'Beauteous moon, so calmly shining;' you'd better not try it again, Caroline. You can't sing at all!  Yes, and you are to take the child down into the courtyard and drag her about a little, the professor says."
Felicitas hid her burning face in her hands; she felt as though she had received a severe reproof. How ashamed, how humbled she was! Brave as she could be in the defense of her own conviction, in telling her foes the undisguised truth, she was exceedingly timid and reserved in regard to her own talents and attainments. The bare thought that her voice might reach the ears of strangers would instantly silence her, the idea of annoying any one was unendurable. And now it had actually happened; she was thought bold, she had exposed herself to the suspicion of trying to attract attention, and so she had been pitilessly reproved and humbled. Frau Hellwig's greatest injustice and arid ill-treatment had never extorted a tear from Felicitas, but she now wept bitterly.
Fifteen minutes after the young girl was dragging the child's carriage slowly up and down the court-yard. The feverish flush on her cheeks was gradually disappearing under the cooling influence of the soft air, but it could not efface from her pale brow the sorrowful expression of gloomy reverie. Ere long Frau Hellwig and the councilor's widow returned together, and at the same time the professor came down-stairs, evidently on his way to take a walk, for he held his hat and cane in his hand. All three entered the court-yard together. The young widow carried a large bundle and, after kissing and petting her child, pushed back the paper a little from the parcel and said to her cousin with a smile:
"See, John, am I not a very heedless woman? Though my heart is steeled against feminine finery, it can not resist the temptations of a linen-shop. I saw this exquisite table-cloth—could I pass it by? Impossible! Almost before I was aware of it I had this table-cloth in my arms, and a piece of wonderfully fine linen besides. But farewell to winter toilets. I must fill up this gap in my purse by giving up new garments—be it so—a good German housekeeper can not get her linen-chest full enough."
The professor made no reply. He was looking past the speaker toward the gate of the court-yard. The woman whom Felicitas had seen in his study upstairs was just coming in. She seemed to be carrying something under her big cloak, and approached the professor with an almost reverential manner.
"Herr Professor, my William can see again, see just as well as I or anybody else," she said in a tremulous Voice amid her tears. "Who would have believed it? Oh! he was so wretched, and we were all so miserable, too! Now he can earn his bread and I can die quietly, since I shall not leave a blind, helpless child behind me. Oh! Herr Professor, all the treasures in the world would not be too much to give you. But we are very poor people—we can not even think of repaying what you have done for us. Don't be angry, Herr Professor, I thought; a trifle—"
"Well, what is it?" interrupted the professor, harshly retreating a step.
While uttering the last words the woman had thrown back her cloak, displaying a large birdcage and a roll of linen.
"You were so fond of hearing the nightingale sing when you came to see us," she began: "if you put the bird in a small cage you can easily take it to Bonn with you. And the piece of linen—it's not fine, but very strong, I spun it myself—perhaps Frau Hellwig could use it for towels—"
"Are you out of your senses, woman, that you want to take the bird from your husband?" interrupted the professor, angrily—his eyes almost vanished under his frowning brows. "I can't bear birds, positively can't endure them—and why should you think it necessary to supply us with household linen? Pack the things up at once and go home."
The woman stood before him in speechless confusion.
"You ought to have spared me and yourself, Frau Walther!" he said, in a more gentle tone. "I have repeatedly told you that you must not give me anything. Come, go now, and tell your William that I will see him again tomorrow."
He shook hands with her and drew her cloak over the objects of her unsuccessful expedition. The poor woman courtesied with downcast eyes, and went away. Frau Hellwig and Adele had been silent witnesses of the scene; the face of the former lady expressed marked disapproval, once she had even seemed disposed to interfere.
"I really don't understand you, John," she said, sharply, after the woman had left. "When I think of all the expense of your education, it seems to me that you have no reason to refuse compensation for your advice. It was a stupid idea about the bird—I could not have endured its noise in my quiet house—but the woman might have left her linen here—good linen ought not to be thrown away in that fashion."
"Oh aunt, then I'm afraid the charitable idea that just flashed into my head would have found little favor in your eyes," said the young widow, in a jesting tone. "Just think, John," she went on, more gravely, "we heard this morning of an unfortunate family so poor that the little children actually have nothing except their ragged gowns to cover them. I felt so sorry for them. Aunt and I instantly thought of making a collection. If you had taken the linen, I should have begged it all from you, it would have made splendid clothes for those children—I would have sewed them myself."
"Oh, the depth of this Christian charity!" interrupted the professor, with a grim laugh. "The last possession of one poor family must be taken to supply the needs of another—and the generous originator of this deed of love stands before a contrite world with a halo of compassion around her fair locks."
"You are too bad, John! " cried the young widow, deeply offended. "I like to give—"
"Only it must not, on any account, cost you any sacrifice, Adele," he replied, with bitter irony. "Why doesn't the true German housekeeper dive into her well-filled linen-chest? For instance, here's this superfluous piece," he touched the bundle of linen in her arms. Both ladies pushed his hand away as if the young widow's life was in danger.
"Oh, that goes beyond a joke, John! " replied the young widow, in a complaining tone, " this marvelously fine linen! "
"You have just reproached me," the professor continued, turning to his mother, without paying any further heed to his irate cousin, "for not setting a proper value upon the results of my expensive education. I can assure you that I, too, am very practical, and consider it a man's duty to gain property; but I also have a higher view of my profession. There is no calling—not even that of the clergyman—which requires a greater exercise of charity. I will never be one of those physicians who while using one hand to lift a poor man from his couch of suffering, plunge him with the other into a sea of anxieties concerning the means of paying for this aid."
Hitherto he had not noticed Felicitas's presence, and even now his glance wandered over her figure unconsciously, but remained riveted upon the beautiful face glowing with heartfelt pleasure; for the first time their eyes met with an expression of mutual sympathy. It was but the space of a lightning-flash, then the young girl dropped her eyelids in alarm and the professor, with a hurried gesture that seemed like indignation, pulled his hat so far over his forehead that his flushed face was nearly hidden by its broad brim.
"Very well—I don't care, John, it is your own business, you can do as you please," replied Frau Hell-wig, in a tone of icy coldness. "Your grandfather would hardly have listened to such opinions. The practice of medicine is your business, and in business, he used to say, no sentimental considerations can be tolerated."
Her ungainly figure moved clumsily toward the door of the house. The councilor's widow, clasping her precious bundle to her heart with a pretty pout, followed her, walking at the professor's side. In the hall the latter glanced back toward the court-yard. Felicitas, complying with Anna's entreaties to be carried up and down a few times, was just lifting the child out of her carriage. As, clinging with both arms around the young girl's neck, she hung with all her weight, it seemed as though the slender figure must break under the burden. The physician instantly returned to the courtyard.
"I have already repeatedly forbidden you to carry the child—she is too heavy for you!" he angrily exclaimed. "Did not Frederica tell you that Heinrich was to help you?"
"She forgot it—and Heinrich is away."
The professor took the little girl and put her back in the carriage, talking gravely to her. The expression of his face was even sterner and more gloomy than usual —at any other time Felicitas would have turned defiantly away, but to-day she was the cause of his ill-humor; she had disturbed the physician's studies by her singing, per haps driven away some new idea just shaping itself in his mind. No matter how angry he might be, she must relieve her heart of the burden that oppressed it, he must know that her sin had been committed ignorantly. The moment was a favorable one as she could not see his face—he was still bending over the carriage, talking to Anna.
"I must ask you to pardon me for having annoyed you by my singing," she said, timidly. The sweet entreaty in her voice, a tone so entirely new to him, evidently produced a marked impression; he stood erect and gazed intently into her face. "I hope you will believe," she continued, still more earnestly," that I had not the least idea that you were in the the house."
The word singing reminded Anna of Felicitas's tears.
"You naughty uncle? Poor Caroline cried!" she said, reproachfully, shaking her little clinched hand at him.
"Is the child telling the truth, Felicitas?" asked the professor, hastily.
She evaded a direct answer.
"I was very much troubled by the thought—"
"That you might be suspected of a desire to have your music heard?" he interrupted, a furtive smile hovering around his lips. "You may calm yourself so far as that is concerned. However revengeful and hostile I may consider you, I can not accuse you of any desire to please, no matter how much I might wish to do so. I asked you to keep silent—not precisely because you disturbed me— but because I—can not listen to your voice. Of course you are greatly displeased?"
Felicitas, smiling, shook her head.
"My—that is very sensible. But I will tell you something." He bent down and gazed steadily and searchingly into her face. "Your song to-day betrayed a carefully guarded secret."
Felicitas was terribly alarmed. He had evidently obtained some hint of her intercourse with Aunt Cordula, She felt her face grow crimson as she looked at him in timid confusion.
"I know now why you have refused any assistance from us in your future life. Our arms, it is true, can not reach the sphere in which you intend to move—you are going upon the stage!"
"You are mistaken," she answered, very positively, evidently relieved, "Though I consider it one of the greatest gifts that human beings can possess, to have the genius to present the creations of master minds to others, I lack the courage requisite for this purpose, I am a great coward where it is necessary to face the public, and this lack of seif-confidence would never permit me to attain any point above mediocrity.   Besides, this profession demands a thorough knowledge of music, and that I shall never possess."
"It is entirely in your power to accomplish it."
"Possibly, But, even when a child, I always believed music to be something that could not be learned like reading and writing—something which, like the lessons of Christ, should come direct from heaven, and I wish to retain this childish fancy. That a thing which can move me to tears and rouse my utmost enthusiasm is capable of being reduced to stiff, pedantic rules and placed on a paper in a series of ugly thick notes, which must be carefully counted, is a thought which robs me of all pleasure. , It affects me as disagreeably as the remembrance of the fact that every beautiful face is formed upon a skull—I want no view of machinery."
"There we again reach the basis of your nature, which rebels against all law and rule," he said sarcastically, though he had learned with evident interest her peculiar definition of music. "So my inference was wrong and your very extraordinary anxiety superfluous," he added, after a pause. "It must be a most remarkable secret! I am almost inclined, by virtue of my office as guardian, to insist upon a revelation of your future plans."
"It would be in vain," she replied, in a quiet, decided tone. "I shall not speak. You have told me that, at the end of two months, I shall be free to do what I choose,"
"Yes, yes; that error has unluckily been made he replied, in a tone of irritation. "But I think—to speak mildly—it seems somewhat bold for a girl of your age to determine the question of her future life according to her own pleasure, without the advice and help of a more experienced person. Suppose the matter to be decided should be the most important step in a woman's life—a union with—in such a case my guardian would be the last person to whom I should apply for counsel!" interrupted Felicitas, her face flushing scarlet. "I should have been already bound forever to a man utterly devoid of character, save for the boldness of Wiping to decide so important a question for myself. You would gladly have said yes and amen to what was termed Herr Wellner's honorable proposals, had I been weak enough to allow myself to fee intimidated by harsh treatment and threats."
The reproach cut like a two-edged sword—for it was just. The professor bit his lips, and his eyes wandered restlessly over the stone pavement at his feet.
"It is true that I believed it would be the best condition to the task allotted to me by my father," he said after a painful pause; his voice had lost its usual firmness. "It was an error, but I did not obstinately persist in it, as you know. Though, at my mother's representations, and by her advice, I gave my consent without minute inquiry, I made no attempt to oppose your decision by persecution or harshness. But the words I uttered just now shall be my last effort to exercise my right as guardian," he added, not without bitterness. "I must leave you to your fate. You anticipate it with hope and joy."
"Yes," replied the young girl, with sparkling eyes.
"And you believe that you will be happy in your new environments?"
"As surely as I believe in a happier life beyond the grave."
While asking the last question the professor had fixed upon her one of those keen, searching looks, which he had doubtless often used with his most obdurate patients, but as her face only grew still more radiant he turned away, either in irritation or anger, without a word. Holding out his hand absently to little Anna, he touched his hat and slowly returned to the house.
The same evening Rosa was sitting in the servants' room. A heap of some transparent blue material filled her lap and her fingers were flying with almost feverish haste. Frederica was bearing her company. The maid would be obliged to sew till midnight, and the old cook had offered to make a cup of strong coffee to keep them awake.
The clock had struck ten long before. Felicitas had gone to her room to prepare for bed, but the ceaseless chatter of the two women over their coffee made the close little chamber seem unendurable. She threw the window wide open, sat down on the sill with her hands clasped on her knee, and looked out into the courtyard. It was not yet quite dark—the lamps in the second and third stories were still burning, and long rays of light streamed through the high windows upon the stone pavement, touched the glittering jet of the fountain, flashed on various dull glass panes in secluded corners, and cast a pallid reflection on the distant front of the back building. Over the square of buildings inclosing the courtyard stretched the glittering heavens. Changeless, as in long distant ages, the stars looked down into this quiet space, peopled by tradition with many a spectral legend; they had beheld the living forms of those who were now said to haunt the place as wailing shades, noble knights, and stately merchant princes, aristocratic dames in silken robes, and wives of rich citizens. Eyes radiant with happiness had been raised to them, and eyes blinded by self-conceit .had wandered coldly over God's most wondrous creations; timid eyes, behind which lurked the consciousness of guilt, and children's eyes swimming in tears, all were now moldering in the dust, their light was extinguished, but Nature's great lesson, the transitoriness of all earthly things, remained unlearned. Generation after generation of human beings had opened their eyes and closed them again, and between these two moments there had been nothing save struggle and strife for a bit of earth, titles, and honors, full coffers and gorgeous garments. And the one trait in human character which moves the world had been here also; the desire to rule, the base desire to drag down others and tread them under foot, and where external circumstances and innate strength of character had not sufficed, men had wrapped themselves in the incense-clouds of piety. Nothing is more distorted and used for purposes of worldly profit than the word of God, never have worse sins been committed than in His name.
While these thoughts were occupying Felicitas's mind, Frederica's harsh tones and the maid's shrill soprano voice kept up an incessant chatter in the next room.
"Yes," said Rosa, suddenly bursting into a laugh, "my mistress looked as though she had suddenly dropped from the clouds when the professor came in this evening and said that he was going on an excursion into the Thuringian forests with a party of ladies and gentlemen the day after to-morrow—he go with such a party! Good heavens! In Bonn he sits over his books year in and year out, visits his patients, and goes to the university—that's all. No balls, no entertainments! Horrible! I can't bear such ways in men!"
"Fy! Shame on you, Rosa!" cried Frederica, angrily. "Suppose your mistress should hear you."
"Well, well, everything has its limits! When he was at school he would have liked to do without eating or drinking in order to be more holy and saint-like—none of the scholars could abide him."
"People are abominably wicked. And I suppose they don't like him any better now?"
"Oh now—now they all worship him. How it began I don't know, but his students are wild about him, and as for the women, it's really horrid—they would actually like to kiss his hands when he writes a prescription. My mistress is not a whit better than the rest. I'm often provoked beyond all patience. If he were only handsome! But he's such an ugly man—with his red beard and rude manners. He cures everybody with harsh words. For instance, my mistress once went to bed in violent spasms; he came up, looked at her as though he meant to pierce her with his eyes, and said, 'Calm yourself, Adele. Get up at once. I will leave the room for a few moments, and when I come back I shall expect to find you sitting in that chair—do you understand? And when he came back there she sat, and the spasms never returned. But tell me yourself, wasn't it outrageous to treat a lady so?"
"He might have been a little more civil, certainly," said the old cook.
"He tyrannizes over her horribly. Her great delight is to dress elegantly. I tell you, Frederica, in Bonn we have wardrobes full of handsome clothes—you would never be tired of looking at them; and whatever new fashion comes up is always added to the lot. But because this bearish professor is constantly preaching simplicity my mistress never wears an elegant dress when he is how much this white trash costs! He wanted the poof woman to stay at home on Anna's account, but some of the party came and urged her so strongly that he had to give in. This blue dress will be very becoming to her, don't you think so, Frederica?"
The maid's thoughtless talk made an unpleasant impression upon Felicitas. She slipped down from the window-sill to go back to the servants' room; perhaps her presence might prevent further disclosures of things that certainly ought not to reach the ears of strangers. Her eyes again wandered aimlessly in the direction of the opposite building—she started. The astral lamp, burning on the landing of the second story, cast its light into the long corridor leading to Aunt Cordula's apartments. The first two windows were quite brightly illuminated; the whitewashed wall of the passage, against which the brown beams stood forth in strong relief, could be distinctly seen. Along this wall a figure was slowly moving, but it was no transparent, spectral form—it was the man the lady's maid considered so ugly. Felicitas plainly distinguished the outlines of his head, the waves of the thick beard, the massive shoulders, which certainly precluded any idea of elegance. He strode along the whole length of the corridor, mechanically stroking his beard with his hand, until he reached the landing with the painted door, which was but dimly illumined by the rays from the distant lamp, then he turned back again. He was doubtless taking his nightly walk, and as the rooms occupied by the councilor's widow and her sick child were directly under his own, he had chosen this solitary, secluded passage. What made him so restless? Was he pondering over some medical problem, or was he conjuring up the image of the lady for whose sake he was forced to lead a life of loneliness? Felicitas thoughtfully closed the window and drew over it the old faded green curtain which had guarded for generations the slumbers of the cocis in the ancient mansion.
CHAPTER XVIII.
IN the garden beyond the town, the lawn shaded lay the chestnut-trees had been lately mowed, and a refreshing, strengthening odor exhaled from the heaps of hay, in one of which Anna had comfortably stretched herself. Felicitas stood leaning against the trunk of the largest tree, which had always been her favorite. Her light feet had climbed it often in the days of her childhood, when not only the patch of turf below, but the whole wide, beautiful earth, had seemed strewn with flowers. Her eyes glided over the giant trunk to the dark mass of foliage above, from which the strong boughs shot boldly into the air in all directions. Life was throbbing under the rough bark; the rising sap was streaming into the delicate veins of the leaves, which stretched like feelers far out into the world, and were probably hard for the old stem, to understand—they trembled in every breeze, rustled when a rough wind swept over them, and drooped under the scorching breath of the sun; but no matter how they might tremble, sigh, and rustle, the trunk stood motionless. And human beings? How easily they broke down when the storms of fate swept over them!
This gloomy thought, often as it is verified, was not quite justified in the case of the young girl whose white brow gleams in such strong contrast to the dark trunk against which she leans. This young creature, with her deep, sensitive feelings, had defied tempests which would have hurled thousands of her sex into the dust. Perhaps the sorrowful reflection sprung from some vague fear, the sudden presentiment of approaching peril which would subjugate her iron will. How little we can understand our own mental life—we receive intimations from our own souls more, blunderingly than it would be possible for the veriest stranger to do! Not until the catastrophe is over do we perceive that we have had warnings of its approach.
Two days had passed since the departure of the professor and his cousin. The former had entered the traveling-carriage with the expression and bearing of a man who is throwing off a heavy burden which he gladly leaves to the pleasant little town of X-----.    In the hall he had shaken hands with Rosa, Heinrich, and the old cook, but he passed Felicitas by as coldly and indifferently, merely touching the brim of his hat, as if those girlish lips had never uttered a bitter word, those eyes vexed him by their defiance—as if, in short, she were a stranger, Well, this was perfectly sensible and right; Felicitas thought with compressed lips, exactly as it ought to be. The young widow had taken her seat opposite to him. She had flitted past the members of the household like a fairy in the midst of airy blue clouds, and her face beamed as radiantly under her straw hat as though she anticipated bringing back from this journey some long-desired happiness.
This was the second afternoon that Felicitas had been permitted to spend in the garden with Anna. These had not only been peaceful hours, but had brought her something pleasant—wonderful she herself termed it—from the world without. The adjoining garden, separated from the Hellwig estate only by a hedge, had recently passed into the possession of the young lawyer's family. The day before he had exchanged greetings with her over the hedge, and today an old lady, dressed in black silk, her pleasant, comely face framed in a snow-white cap, had suddenly appeared and spoken to her. It was the young man's mother. She led a very retired life, devoted to her husband and her only son, and was highly respected by everybody in the town. In view of Felicitas's approaching departure from the Hellwigs, she offered the young girl her advice and assistance—an unheard-of ray of sunshine to fall upon the path of the depised player's child. Yet Felicitas now stood leaning against the old chestnut, lost in somber thought. A light breeze stirred the dark boughs above her head, she smiled sorrowfully, the whispers seemed like echoes from a lost paradise. Her childhood passed before her, and now the faint whispering seemed like a prediction that she would be forced to struggle and suffer until her last breath.    But no warning voice came to tell her that at that very moment fate was crushing beneath its iron tread all her fairest hopes for the future.
Heinrich had come to the garden gate a few moments before; at first he seemed about to rush up to Felicitas in the utmost haste, then he disappeared behind a cypress hedge. Now he appeared more slowly. The first sight of his broad, honest face, distorted by some great emotion, told the young girl that he had bad news. But from what quarter? She darted up to him anxiously and seized his hand.
"Oh, Fay, I can not help you—you must hear it," he said in a hollow tone, brushing the back of his hard hand across his heated brow and averting his eyes. "You know, poor child, that it is the natural course of events," "Go on!" she interrupted harshly, almost with a shriek; then she clinched her teeth convulsively.
"Oh, dear—the Lord have mercy on us, if you are going to act so, how shall I tell you? The old mam'selle—"
"Is dead!" she screamed.
"Not yet, Fay, not yet; but it is almost over, she doesn't know anybody, she has had a stroke of apoplexy. And, oh God, she was all alone! The maid found her lying on the floor in the room where she kept her birds—she had just fed the poor little creatures—" His voice broke, and he wept like a child. Felicitas stood as if petrified; every drop of blood had ebbed from her pale face, she mechanically pressed her hands upon her throbbing temples, but no tears sprung to her eyes. For one moment a bitter smile hovered around her lips, then with strange composure she took her hat, which was lying on a pile of hay, called Rosa, who was sewing under the acacias, and gave the child into her care.
"Are you ill?" asked the maid. The statue-like appearance, the unnatural rigidity of the girl's ashen face alarmed her.
"Yes, she is ill," Heinrich answered, in Felicitas's stead, as she hurried toward the gate.
"Be careful, Fay," he said, walking part of the way by her side, "the mistress is with her—its lucky poor mam'selle doesn't know it. Doctor Boehm has just gone away—he can do nothing more. And that it should have happened to-day, this very day. Oh, what an unlucky girl you are!"
Felicitas did not hear what he was saying; the words buzzed unmeaningly past her ears, just as she failed to see the people she met in the street. Unnoticed by Frederica, she entered the house and went upstairs. On the upper landing she flung her hat into a corner. The door of the bird-room was ajar, it echoed with shrill chirpings. How carefully it had always been watched, that no fugitive should escape. Now Felicitas passed without touching it—the forsaken little creatures might seek their food under the open sky, they had no protectress. She entered the large sitting-room; from the adjoining chamber Frau Hellwig's monotonous, droning voice resounded through the apartment which for long years had heard nothing save the language of music or the rare melody of a woman's gentle, loving tones.    The great lady was reading in a loud voice one of those old hymns which, composed for a people still on a low plane of intellectual culture, have wholly lost, both in their guiding thought and in their mode of expression, all power to act as mediators between God and the human soul at the present day.    How unnatural it seemed that those rudely made rhymes, filled with the most commonplace, material similes, should be read to the dying ears of one whose whole life had been devoted to the culture of true beauty, and who had expressed her reverence for God in the things that had emanated from His own spirit in poetry and in the divine melodies of the masters whose genius He had bestowed.   Felicitas glided into the room as noiselessly as a shadow.    Frau Hellwig read on without noticing her.    There, beneath the white curtains of the bed, which waved gently to and fro like wings in the breeze from the open window, as if ready to receive and bear away the departing soul, lay an ashen face.    Oh! how cruel death is to disfigure, before our eyes, the loved ones we are to see no more on earth, so that we gaze with involuntary terror at the features where we were wont to read the language of love and tender sympathy. The drooping lids were not yet quite closed.    The eyes rolled restlessly to and fro, a low rattle accompanied each heavy, gasping breath; from time to time the right arm was feebly lifted, then the clinched waxen fingers fall heavily upon the coverlet again.    What a terrible spectacle for the young girl, for whom the last ray of love that had brightened her wretched life must soon be extinguished. Felicitas went up to the bed.   Frau Hellwig raised her eyes from her hymn-book and fixed them in boundless amazement upon the pallid, tearless face bending over the invalid.
"What do you want here, you insolent creature?" she asked, in loud, harsh tones, raising her large hand and pointing imperiously toward the door.
Felicitas made no reply, but the pause in the monotonous reading seemed to produce some impression on the dying woman. She tried to fix her wandering eyes—they rested on Felicitas. A ray of joyful recognition flashed into them; her lips moved at first vainly, there was an evident effort to speak, and the strong soul conquered, forcing the half-dead mechanism of the body to obey its will. "Bring a lawyer!" fell in faltering but distinct accents from her lips.
The girl instantly left the room, there was not a moment to lose. She darted along the corridor, but just as she was passing the door of the bird-room it was thrown wider open, and she felt herself seized from behind by strong hands and hurled violently into the middle of the room, while the door was closed and locked. A terrible uproar followed, the frightened birds flew hither and thither with a din of cries fairly bewildering to the senses. Felicitas had fallen forward, dragging down with her one of the fir-trees that stood in the middle of the apartment. What had happened? She rose and pushed back the hair that had fallen over her face. She had seen no one, heard no sound, yet some one had evidently stood near and seized her with demoniac power, just at the moment she was hurrying to fulfill the last wish of a dying woman, and when every minute's delay burdened her soul with a terrible weight of responsibility.
She rushed to the door, but it was firmly locked; her knocking and shaking was drowned by the frightful clamor of the birds. The excited little creatures flew over her head, dashed frantically against the walls, and hardly grew quiet when the young girl in despair at last let her arms fall by her sides. Who would open the door? Surely not the hands which had just thrust her in. She knew their iron grip only too well; they were the same hands that had just held the hymn-book, which had been flung aside to execute this deed of violence, and now the terrible woman was again seated beside the death-bed, reading on in those same monotonous, unmoved tones. She would pitilessly permit the dying woman, with superhuman strength, to prolong her death agony, in the belief that she was still needed to perform some last deed of charity. Poor Aunt Cordula! She must leave the world where she had been so lonely with a bitter disappointment; the last impressions that her departing soul would bear away would be of religious fanaticism in the person of the woman she had loathed, and the proverbial ingratitude of mankind of which Felicitas was made to seem guilty. The thought drove the young girl wild. Fairly frantic with excitement, she rushed up and down the room, and shook the door still more violently—in vain. Why had she been locked in? Aunt Cordula had told her to bring a lawyer; had she a last confession to make? No, no, the old mam'selle had nothing to confess! If she had been obliged to bear through life any burden of guilt, it was the guilt of others, a burden she might cast aside in the other world. Felicitas had gradually perceived that the old mam'selle might have been the innocent sharer, but never the guilty accomplice of any disgraceful secret. Perhaps she, had wished to make some disposition of her property, and this desire had been baffled by Frau Hellwig's act of violence. If Aunt Cordula should die without a will her whole estate would fall to the Hellwig family. Who knows how many poor, unfortunate human beings, whom she would have made comfortable for life, would be robbed of their support by this delay, while the great lady's coming into the fortune would add fresh treasure to the chest and coffers of a family whose wealth was already reputed vast.
Felicitas went to the window and looked down at the neighboring houses, anxiously watching for some human being whom she might summon to her assistance, but they were all so far below that she was neither heard nor seen. How her pulses throbbed with anguish and feverish excitement! She threw herself into the only chair in the room, and burst into tears of hopeless despair. It would be too late now, even if she were released that very moment. Perhaps the beloved eyes were already closed, the heart that had anxiously watched for her return was already still in death. The universal consolation, that the transfigured soul was now aware of the reason its last earthly wish had been baffled, brought no comfort to the young girl's keen, logical mind. It is difficult to believe that the human soul, which like everything God has created, must pass gradually through countless phases to attain the highest perfection, can instantly exchange its limited earthly vision for the divine gift of omniscience, from the other world read, as if in an open book, ail arts impulses, and most secret motives of the dwellers on this earth.
Felicitas had probably spent nearly two hours in this imprisonment, alternating between gloomy despair and frantic efforts to obtain release. The place had become actually horrible to her. The senseless creatures, formerly her pets, but which now at any hasty movement renewed their shrill cries and wild flutterings, seemed to her excited imagination like spectral forms; she trembled at her own movements. Night was closing in, the shadows of twilight already darkened the uncanny room, her heart was aching with her first wild anguish of grief for the friend she had lost—she was on the very verge of madness!  Again she rushed to the door, and stood as if paralyzed with amazement—it yielded without the least resistance to her hands. The passage was still as death. Felicitas might have fancied herself the victim of some terrible dream, had not the sitting-room been firmly locked. She looked through the keyhole; a strong draught was blowing through the apartment, rustling the ivy trained along the walls—they had opened the window; yes all was over, over forever!
Down in the front mansion below the old cook sat knitting at the open street-door, as was her habit on pleasant summer afternoons. From the kitchen came a strong odor of newly baked bread. Frederica had just taken out of the oven a pan filled with the cracknels Frau Hellwig liked with her coffee. Everything here had gone on its usual course, while upstairs one of the family had departed from the world.
Felicitas entered the servants' room. Directly after Heinrich came in, and after hanging his cap on a nail, went silently up to Felicitas and held out his hand. The sorrowful expression of his old, weather-beaten face, and eyes reddened by weeping, brought relief to the young girl's aching heart. Springing up, she threw both arms around his neck and burst into a passionate flood of tears.
"Didn't you see her again, Fay?" he asked gently, after a pause. "Frederica told me that Frau Hellwig closed her eyes—alas, that her hands should have done it! Of course you could not be there; the mistress would have been furious if she had seen you. Where have you been all this while?"
Felicitas's tears instantly ceased to flow. With flashing eyes she told him what had happened. Heinrich walked up and down the room like one possessed.
"Is it possible?" he cried again and again, running his fingers through his bushy gray hair. "Can God permit such wickedness? By the cross of Christ— Yet, if you should go and accuse her before a magistrate you would be sent home because you have no witnesses, and not a soul in the whole town would believe you, because she is the upright, pious Frau Hellwig, and you— And how slyly she did it!" he interrupted himself, with a grim laugh. "Just when the birds were screaming loudest, she gently unfastened the door again. Yes, yes, I've always said so—she's one of the worst. And Fay, you poor child, she has robbed you! I was sent this very morning to old mam'selle's lawyer—to-morrow afternoon at two o'clock she intended to make her will—in your favor. Yes, yes, 'who knows how soon my end may come'—she was so wonderfully clever, and might have awed many a man by the display of so much wisdom in a woman's head, but she could not have known that beautiful hymn, or she would not have waited so long."
CHAPTER   XIX.
IT was very early the next morning when Frau Hell-wig appeared in the court-yard. Instead of the familiar white cap, whose shape had remained unchanged for so many years, a black one now framed the pale, flabby features, The wicked woman who had so often profaned the Sabbath by her "unholy songs and merry tunes" was dead; even the last trace of her despised existence was already banished from the house—the body had been removed to the undertaker's the evening before. But, nevertheless, the dead woman had borne the name of Hellwig, so the mistress of the mansion wore the black cap and strip of crape, which to-day took the place of the stiff linen collar around her neck.
She opened the door through which Felicitas had once seen the old mam'selle disappear. Besides the well-known stair-case behind the painted door, another narrow, winding flight went straight from the steep, narrow street to the old mam'selle's abode. This was the way Heinrich and her maid had taken, and the door in the court-yard also opened upon it.
The busts still looked down unaltered from their lofty pedestals, but the genius of the place had fled from the apartment. Frau Hellwig now entered with the assured confidence of the possessor. A cold, scornful smile hovered around her lips as she passed through the suite of rooms, each one revealing in its tasteful arrangement the poetic nature and sensitive spirit of its former mistress, but she frowned with an expression of hate as her eyes rested on the rows of books in handsome morocco bindings, visible through the glass doors of a book-case—books which bore the name of famous poets and authors.
Seizing a large bunch of keys that lay on the table, she opened a desk, evidently the most interesting piece of furniture in the room to her. The drawers were in the most perfect order; one after another was pulled out, revealing packages of yellow letters tied with faded ribbons, and piles of closely written books. The plump, white hands thrust them in again impatiently—what interest could she take in all that stuff, the great lady was not inquisitive. But a little box filled with documents was treated far more kindly. With great care, and an expression of much satisfaction, Frau Hellwig unfolded paper after paper. She was a good accountant ; in a very short time she had found the sum-total of the various sums invested—the property was larger than she had expected.
But this by no means ended the search. The various bureaus and trunks were examined in turn, and the longer she remained the greater became her haste and impatience. Her face gradually flushed, her clumsy figure hurried with unwonted speed from room to room, her hands rummaged carelessly among the dainty underclothing, tossed about the dead woman's caps and collars, and pushed the glass and china so rudely to and «o that it rattled loudly—what she sought was nowhere to be found. At last, greatly vexed, she went out upon' the balcony. Her clumsy movements upset several flower-pots, scattering the blossoms and leaves in all directions, but she paid no heed—she did not even bestow her stereotyped smile of contempt upon the "rubbish." Frederica was feeding the chickens in the courtyard. Frau Hellwig called to her to send Heinrich up at once, and, stepping back, began her search afresh
"Don't you know where the old lady kept her silver?" she cried, as soon as Heinrich entered. "There must be a great deal of it; my mother-in-law told me so. She had at least two dozen heavy table-spoons, the same number of beautiful gilt tea-spoons, besides silver candlesticks, a coffee-pot, and a milk-pitcher." The list, which she had remembered with wonderful accuracy, rolled from her lips as fluently as though she was reading aloud. "I can find none of these pieces—where are they?"
"I do not know," replied Heinrich, quietly. He went to a table, pulled out a drawer, and took from it two silver dishes. "This is all the silver I have ever seen," he said. "I often had to clean it because the maid did not make it bright enough."
Frau Hellwig walked up and down the room, biting her lips angrily. The strict reserve she usually maintained in her servant's presence deserted her for a moment.
"It would be a pretty nice piece of business—an outrageous thing—if the old woman had sold these valuable family heirlooms, or even—given them away. It would be just like her!" she added as if to herself. It must be found, I won't rest till I know. She had diamonds, too—very beautiful jewels; everything of the kind that belonged to the Hellwig family was equally divided between her arid my mother-in-law." She stopped suddenly, for at that instant her eyes rested upon the cabinet with glass-doors containing the portfolios of music; she had not yet searched that.
The lower part of this cabinet had very beautifully carved wooden doors, which she tore open. Piles of neatly arranged periodicals filled the two shelves. The cruel, malicious smile appeared on her angry face, her upper-lip curled, revealing the whole row of her strong sound teeth. Dragging out one pile after another, she flung them so violently on the floor that the scattered sheets flew all around the room. The old servant was furious. He clinched his fists and glared savagely at the Vandal. He had brought all those papers from the post-office to the old mam'selle; they had afforded genuine refreshment and recreation in her lonely life; lie could still see her kind eyes sparkle as he laid a new pamphlet on her table.
"There are all the foes of our Church!" she muttered. "These disgraceful papers, this abominable deviltry! Yea, yes; this wicked old maid led an evil life—and I have been compelled to tolerate the impious creature beneath my roof so many long years."
She stood up and looked through the glass doors. A short, harsh laugh escaped her lips at the sight of the music. She unlocked the doors and ordered Heinrich to bring a clothes-basket, in which he was told to put all the books and portfolios of notes on the shelves. The old man racked his brain to guess the fate of the beautiful books which had so often lain on the piano and from which the old mam'selle had played such exquisite music. The great lady stood beside him, watching him carefully to see that not a page was left; she did not touch them herself, it almost seemed as though she thought they might burn her fingers. At last she told Heinrich to carry the basket down to the front mansion, and, after carefully locking all the doors upstairs, followed him. To the annoyance of Frederica, to whom her visits were an abomination, she went into the kitchen where Heinrich set down his load and was then sent to the sitting-room for a paper-knife. The cook had just made up a hot fire.
"You can save your wood today, Frederica!" said Frau Hellwig, throwing one of the loose sheets into the blaze. The handsome portfolio containing the old mam'selle's valuable autograph collection lay on the top of the basket. The silk ribbons that tied it were loosed one after another by Frau Hellwig's determined fingers. Oh, how the flames shot up and consumed them! The name of "Glück " glowed forth in fiery characters, the notes of a brilliant cadenza by Cimaroso shone like flaming pearls; Italians, Germans, and French shared the same fate.
Heinrich had at first stood by helplessly—speechless with rage. Poor, lonely mam'selle's body was not yet buried, and this heartless woman was already rummaging and destroying her property more savagely than the rudest soldier would do in a hostile country.
"But," he said at last, "suppose there should be a will!"
Frau Hellwig raised her face, flushed by the heat of the fire. It wore a look of anger, mingled with contempt. "How long have I allowed you to make your wise remarks in my presence?" she asked sharply. She had just taken up the manuscript operetta by Bach, which the old mam'selle had once said was the only copy in existence, and would some day be worth its weight in gold. With still greater energy, and a strange expression upon her face, she cut and tore the sheets into atoms, and stuffed them under the oven.
At this moment the door bell rang loudly. Heinrich went to answer it. A lawyer, accompanied by a constable, entered, bowed to the mistress of the house, who came out of the kitchen with a very astonished face, and introduced himself as the commissary charged with the duty of sealing the effects of the late Cordula Hellwig, spinster.
Perhaps the first time in her life Frau Hellwig lost her iron composure and coolness.
"Seal up?" she faltered.
"There is a will at her lawyer's."
"That must be a mistake!" cried Frau Hellwig. "I am positively certain that, by her father's will, she had no power to make one—the whole property reverts to the Hellwig family."
"I am sorry," said the magistrate, shrugging his shoulders. "The will exists, and much as I regret being compelled to trouble you, my duty requires me to affix the seals at once."
Frau Hellwig bit her lips, took the keys of the old mam'selle's rooms, and led the way. But Heinrich ran triumphantly upstairs to Felicitas, who was fulfilling her duties as nurse, though to Anna's astonishment she sat as stiff and silent as a statue beside the prattling little girl. Heinrich told her everything that had occurred. At this account of the auto da fe the young girl started up.
"Were they single sheets that she burned?" she asked in a stifled voice.
"Yes, single sheets. They were in red portfolios, tied with handsome ribbons."
Felicitas did not stop to hear anything more, but rushed down to the kitchen. There stood the basket, which still contained a few exercises for the piano and some music-books, but the open portfolios lay scattered over the floor, not a sheet remained in them. The draught blew a torn scrap of paper out upon the hearth. Felicitas picked it up. "Paritur of Johann Sebastian Bach, written by his own hand and received from him as a remembrance in the year 1707. Gotthelf von Hirschsprung," she read, with tears streaming from her eyes.
It was the last fragment of the mysterious manuscript —the melodies were silenced forever.
Frau Hellwig had apparently not intended to interrupt her son's pleasure-trip by the tidings of the old mam'selle's death, but, after the business of sealing was over, from which she returned in a very angry mood, with a most sour and irritated expression on her face, she wrote a few hasty lines recalling him. According to the dead woman's directions, the will was to be read on the very day after the funeral. Frau Hellwig needed some support lot this ordeal; never had she felt so unnerved. The possible loss of a considerable fortune, which she had always believed to be inalienable, produced a marked impression even upon her iron nature.
The party had started without fixing any definite end to their journey. "A trip at random, pitching our tents wherever we choose," had been the programme; so Frau Hellwig was somewhat uncertain where to address her letter. The search commenced in the old mam'selle's rooms she now continued in her dead husband's study. Doubtless, among the family papers she could find proofs that the old mam'selle had had no right to dispose of her property according to her own will. Perhaps she had accumulated something from her savings. Frau Hellwig had suspected something of the sort the evening of the day before—but the lock of the bird-room door had done its duty and preserved this sum also to the Hellwig family. But, no matter how she pondered and reflected, she could not tell where she had obtained the firm assurance on which she had so long relied. Either she had read it herself in the will of Cordula Hellwig's father, or else she had been told it verbally by some trustworthy person—but no matter whence came the conviction, she felt sure of the fact, and the papers proving it must be found. She searched and read till drops of perspiration stood on her pale forehead—but it was an unlucky day—her exertions were as profitless as those of the morning. Fortune seems to prefer to fling her roses at the feet of cold- hearted, calculating, unimaginative people—it almost seems as though she fancied her treasures would be less secure with richly endowed natures than in the hands of those whose souls are closed with iron bars as well as their coffers. The great lady had hitherto been one of these spoiled children of fortune—therefore she was greatly surprised by this day of ill-luck.
Two days had elapsed. Fran Hellwig's letter was probably wandering in some well-filled mail-bag through the green valleys of the Thuringian forests, and the old mam'selle had been committed to the earth, with no one who bore the name of Hellwig to follow her coffin.
Felicitas bore her deep grief silently, with the self-control inherent in strong natures. She did not know the weakness that seeks consolation for sorrow by speaking of it to others: from her earliest childhood she had been wont to struggle through every trouble alone, and to let her secret wounds bleed without permitting those around her even to suspect their existence. She had carefully shunned the sight of the dead body. The last conscious glance of the dying woman, that rested upon her, had been her farewell—she did not wish to remember that dear face unillumined by the soul. But, on the afternoon of the day of the funeral, after Frau Hellwig had gone out, she took one of the keys that hung in the servants': room—it unlocked the passage leading to the attic the reader has already visited. The considerable increase in corpulence which the last few years had bestowed on the mistress of the mansion, made her avoid ascending the stairs as much as possible, so the old cook had long had unimpeded access to the highest rooms.
Aunt Cordula must and should have some fresh flowers put on her grave, but only those she herself had planted. All the chambers under the roof, except the bird-room, were sealed, and there was no way of getting to the hanging garden, which the officials' negligence had thus cut off from human care. After the lapse of nine years, Felicitas again stood at the attic window, gazing across at the flowers on the roof. How many events lay between the day, when the ill-treated child's soul had rebelled against God and man, and now! There she had had a home : There the lonely dweller in those rooms had taken the despised player's child to her noble, womanly heart, and warded off every deadly assault upon her soul with the weapons of her cultivated intellect. There the child had studied unweariedly, and through these studies found a new life opened to her. He who was now wandering through the magnificent Thuringian forests with a party of beautiful women, did not suspect that his plan of education, based upon narrow prejudices and gloomy bigotry, had been baffled by a few bold steps along the two slight gutters down below. And now this path must be trodden again. Felicitas climbed out of the window and walked boldly across the roofs: she moved with a light, swift step, and soon had the smooth floor of the balcony under her feet. The poor flowers, so innocently nodding their pretty heads in the light breeze, were far worse off than their neighbors, the lilies of the field. Held aloft in the air, as if by some magic spell, they knew nothing of the sweet, warm earth, the firm native soil, which takes to its heart alike the tiniest rootlet of the smallest flower and the massive, far-stretching roots of the largest tree; their weal or woe had depended on two little, withered white hands, now resting quietly beneath the ground, and moldering into dust. But they did not yet feel their orphanage, it had rained several times lately during the night, and they seemed to be vying with each other in bloom and fragrance.
Felicitas pressed her face against the panes of the glass door and looked in. There stood the little round table,  the knitting, with a needle half thrust into the work, lay beside the basket as if it had just been laid down to be taken up again directly. Across an open book lay her spectacles; the young girl, deeply touched, read a few lines—the last intellectual pleasure the old mam'selle had enjoyed on earth had been Antony's speech in Shakespeare's play of "Julius Caesar." In the sitting-room stood the beloved piano, and beside it glittered the glass panes of the old cabinet, but the lower shelves were empty—the old piece of furniture had faithlessly suffered its musical treasures to be wrested from it; they were now reduced to ashes, but it guarded the others more securely. Frau Hellwig had sought for the old silver in vain, and Felicitas started violently. The secret drawers in the cabinet contained not only jewels and silver; in one corner stood a little gray pasteboard box. "It must die before me," Aunt Cordula had said. Was it destroyed? It was on no account to pass into the hands of her heirs, yet the old mam'selle had always lacked the courage to destroy it herself. It was more than probable that it still remained there. If the will mentioned the place where the silver was deposited, a secret might be revealed which Aunt Cordula had tried with all her strength to keep from the world—that must never be.
The glass door of the balcony was bolted within. Felicitas, with prompt decision, broke one of the panes and felt for the bolt—it had not been slipped; the door had undoubtedly been locked inside and the key removed—a cheerless discovery.
Passionate indignation overpowered the young girl at the thought that fate always opposed any service she wished to render Aunt Cordula. Her grief for the dead was now mingled with apprehension of what the future might have in store. Had the little gray box contained proofs to refute all rumors of any crime committed by the old mam'selle? Or would its contents cast a still darker shadow upon her memory?
She hastily cut a beautiful bouquet, put two pots of auriculas—Aunt Cordula's favorite flowers—into her basket, and returned by the same way over the roofs with a heart far heavier than when she had come.
The young girl now had three graves in the large, quiet cemetery. Earth covered those who had been dearest to her, and to whom her warm heart fervently clung. She cast a look of unutterable bitterness toward heaven as she strewed the flowers on Aunt Cordula's new-made grave. No friend could now be taken from her! Her father had doubtless died long ago—his bones were moldering in some foreign clime; yonder, on a costly marble monument, gleamed in gilt letters the name of Friedrich Hellwig, and here—she went to her mother's grave, which thanks to the old mam'selle's care, had been kept supplied every summer during the last nine years with exquisite flowers. Today the headstone was lying beside the mound. Heinrich had said several days before that the inscription must be renewed, the letters were nearly obliterated; the stone had probably been taken up by his directions. It had formerly been sunk so low in the ground that only the name was visible; now the whole length could be seen. "Meta d'Orlowska" Felicitas read, with eyes dimmed by tears; but beneath this was another name which had previously been entirely covered by the earth. The letters here and there showed a faint trace of the black paint, but they had been cut into the sandstone, and there was no difficulty in deciphering the "née von Hirchsprung, of Kiel."
Felicitas fell into a reverie. This was the name on the operetta by Bach; it had also belonged to the ancient Thuringian family whose crest still adorned the walls of the old mansion—the little silver seal Felicitas had found in the embroidered bag in her childhood also bore the same leaping stag—it was a strange enigma! The haughty race, whose last descendants had been forced to use the plane and awl, had long since passed away. Heinrich had known the last scion—he had died unmarried while a student at Leipsic, and yet, fourteen years before, a young wife had come hither from the distant north, whose maiden name had been the same, and whose parents had used the same escutcheon. Had some branch of the old Thuringian stock been torn away and hurled to some distant land? Proud noble, whose image, carved in stone, remains perpetuated on the old Hellwig mansion, come forth from thy leaden coffin and wander through this grave-yard! Various stones bear thy name, and beneath them are resting men whose hands were hardened by toil, men who were forced to earn their bread in the sweat of their brows, though thou hadst bequeathed the sealed documents which were to forever secure the rights and privileges of thy descendants. Thou didst close thine eyes in the delusion that thy noble blood, the aristocratic hands of thy descendants, could never be sullied by toil! Come to this grave which covers the dust of a daughter of thy house who journeyed hither from her distant home. The bread she eat was still more hardly won; her calling was despised, she was forced to appear before the public in the performance of juggling tricks and one of these tricks destroyed her blooming life. Thou didst not remember the changes which, in the histories of individual families as well as in that of the world, here display heights scaling the heavens and yonder open deep abysses, only to again level and equalize both extremes.
Were any of the relatives of Felicitas's mother still alive? The young girl answered this question for herself with a bitter smile; at any rate they did not exist for the daughter of Meta von Hirschsprung. Twice public appeals had been made to them, and they had maintained a persistent silence. Perhaps this branch of the ancient race had preserved its original purity up to the moment I when a daughter of the house had given heart and hand to a juggler, and was forever expelled from the Eden of aristocratic luxury, and the circle of her relatives. One thing was certain, her child would never cross the threshold of those who publicly disowned all relationship to the juggler's wife.
CHAPTER XX.
AFTER leaving the grave-yard Felicitas did not return to the house on the market-place. Rosa and Anna were expecting her in the garden, and Frau Hellwig was also coming there later to take tea with the child under the acacias. She had apparently recovered her external composure, but it was noticeable that she went out much more frequently than usual; it almost seemed as though she felt the need of some diversion in her life while awaiting her son's return.
She seemed to wish to ignore her meeting with Felicitas in the old mam'selle's rooms. She had evidently never thought of any previous acquaintanceship between the young girl and her old relative, and had attributed Felicitas's entrance to mere curiosity, which, under other circumstances, would certainly not have been suffered to pass without rebuke; but in view of the events occurring later in the afternoon, she doubtless considered it desirable to have the whole affair forgotten as soon as possible. Felicitas had walked rapidly nearly the whole length of the little town, and now stopped before a garden gate.
Drawing long breath, she resolutely laid her hand upon the latch and opened it. It led into the adjoining garden, owned by the young lawyer's family. The young girl was now wholly dependent upon herself and her own plans. Spite of the grief that filled her soul, her secret sufferings had no effect upon a character steeled by the conflicts she had undergone, her marvelously clear brain soon rallied from the hardest blows of fate to confront the inevitable; never had the mists of enthusiasm or sensibility been suffered to cloud her clear logical train of thought. The delicate, distinguished looking old lady in the white cap, who had addressed Felicitas a few days before, sat drawing in. a shady arbor. She instantly recognized the young girl and beckoned to her to approach.
"Ah, here comes my young neighbor, and wants some good advice, doesn't she?" she asked, with winning kindness, inviting the young girl to take a seat by her side. Felicitas told her at the end of three weeks she was to leave the Hellwigs, and was now in search of some employment.
"Will you tell me, my child, what you can do" asked the lady, fixing her large, bright eyes, which vividly reminded Felicitas of her son's, upon the young girl's face, which flushed crimson. She must now speak of her hidden accomplishments, exhibit her attainments as a merchant displays his wares. It was an unspeakably painful necessity, yet the task must be accomplished.  "I think I am competent to teach French and German, geography and history," she answered in faltering tones. "I have also received instruction in drawing. I am not thoroughly trained in music, but I could teach singing correctly up to a certain point"—the lady's eyes dilated in astonishment—"then I can cook, wash, iron, and if necessary, scrub."                                               
The last requirements fell much more rapidly from the young girl's lips than the first ones had done.                
"I suppose you would not care to remain in our good little town of X-----?" asked her listener, eagerly.
"I should not desire to stay for any length of time, but there are graves here which are very dear to me—I cannot go at once."
"Then I will tea you something. My sister, who lives in Dresden, has a companion who is going to be married; her place will be vacant in about six months. I will secure it for you, and until then you shall stay with me. Do you consent?"
Felicitas, much surprised, gratefully kissed her hand, then rising, gazed earnestly at her: some wish was evidently hovering on her lips; her hostess instantly perceived it.
"You still have something on your mind, have you not? If we are to live together so long, we must be perfectly frank with each other, so speak freely," she said, cheerily. "I should like to ask you to give me some fixed position in your family, even though it should be a most humble one and to be retained only a very short time," replied Felicitas, hastily, but firmly.
"Oh, I understand! you are tired of eating bread which is earned by hard toil, yet which—we will speak plainly—has been called the bread of charity." Felicitas assented.
"Well, my dear, proud child, you shall occupy no such grevious position in my household. I engage you now to be my companion. You shall neither wash, scrub, nor iron, but you will doubtless often be called upon to take a general oversight of the kitchen, for my old Dora and I are both growing old and weary—-will you?" "Ah, how willingly."
For the first time since Aunt Cordula's death, a faint smile flitted over the young girl's grave face.
A slender shaft of sunlight, that had been flickering on the shady vine-covered walk, suddenly vanished— evening had fallen. Felicitas remembered that she must be at her post before Frau Hellwig came, and therefore begged permission to retire. The old lady took leave of her with a warm clasp of the hand, and in a few minutes she stood in the next garden with little Anna in her arms. Frederica arrived soon after; she carried a heavy basket of crockery and looked very much flushed.
"They came an hour ago!" she cried, panting for breath, and evidently much out of temper, as she set down her burden. "We certainly never were so upset before. My mistress, when she saw the carriage coming across the square, told me that supper was to be served in town. Just as I had everything ready, she came to me and said the professor insisted on coming out here, so I had to pack the whole meal and drag it along."
Then she rushed off to one of the beds to cut a few heads of lettuce.
"There has been such a time—such a shameful time!" she said, in a low tone, as Felicitas stood beside her, dressing the salad. "Frau Hellwig hardly waited to say 'How are you,' before she began to talk about the will. I tell you, Caroline, I never saw her so furious in my life. But the young master talked like a fool; he said that the old aunt had been cast off by her relatives, that nobody in the family had cared about her, living or dying, and for his part he could see no reason why she should put money in the pockets of the people who had despised her—he had never thought of her property. And in the midst of the talk, whenever his mother stopped to take breath, he would ask whether everything in the household had gone on well during his absence. He seemed queer enough—and the young widow looked out of sorts too."
Felicitas, as usual, made no answer to the old cook's gossip. She took some sewing and sat down under the chestnut-tree, while little Anna played about on the soft turf by her side. From her place, through a gap in the hedge, which stretched like a screen before her, she could see the garden gate. This gate, with its delicate cast-iron gratings, framed on both sides by blooming rose bushes, and opening into the garden from the superb avenue of dark-green linden-trees, had always possessed a mysterious charm for the young girl. She had seen many forms pass through it—kind, friendly faces, that she had bounded joyfully to meet, and others who had made her heart feel heavy, and behind whose retreating figures the gate had closed with a peculiar jarring creak, to which the child had listened with a sigh of relief. But never had she been thrilled with terror so sudden, pain so sharp, as darted through her heart when the gate slowly swung inward and Frau Hellwig, leaning on her son's arm and followed by the councilor's widow, entered. Why should she fear these people? Frau Hellwig usually ignored her existence, and the man by her side had long since given up the task of converting the juggler's daughter to his views, according to which she was and would ever remain an outcast, despised by all mankind.
Frederica had said that he "seemed queer," and Felicitas could not help perceiving that there was something unusual in his appearance. The idea of haste could scarcely be associated with his careless movements and air of indifference in every-day life, yet the young girl at this moment could have found no other word to describe his manner. He was evidently struggling to move onward rapidly—a thing utterly impossible to accomplish with Frau Hell wig's clumsy figure moving at a measured pace by his side—and, holding his head very high, was gazing around the garden—of course in search of his little patient
Rosa came running along the graveled path to get Anna, and Felicitas followed them behind the first cypress hedge to see the meeting between the mother and child. The councilor's widow, it is true, took her little girl in her arms and patted her cheeks, but all the while she was scolding Rosa for having taken the key of her rooms, and thus obliged her to walk through the town in that "shocking dress." The airy traveling costume had in truth lost some of its delicate hue, and hung limp, tumbled, and soiled over the crinoline.
"Well, this whole expedition, up   to the very   last moment, has been one of the most stupid excursions I ever undertook in all my life!" said the young widow, pettishly, pouting crossly as she drew a needle through a rent in the luckless gown.    "I wished I had stayed at home with you, aunt, in your quiet room!    We had a thousand vexatious incidents, I assure you; wherever we went we always had a shower of rain, and this bearish cousin of mine was in the worst possible humor.   You've no idea, aunt, how rude and—delightful he was!    He would have liked to turn round and come back the very first day.   And we took so much trouble to bring a pleasant look to his gloomy face!    Fraulein von Sternthal devoted herself so eagerly to the task that I expected her to make him an offer of marriage every instant.   Now tell me yourself, John, wasn't she the very embodiment of amiability?"
Felicitas did not catch the professor's reply. She had returned to the chestnut-tree and was sewing busily, in the hope that she would not be noticed. The group looked excited and angry. The scarlet flush of violent agitation still glowed on Frau Hellwig's cheeks and her son's ill-temper during the journey had evidently not been improved by his reception at home.
For a time it seemed as though the lonely seamstress under the nut-tree was to be left undisturbed in her seclusion, but once raising her eyes, she saw through a gap in the cypress hedge the figure of the professor. He Was strolling quietly along, with his hands clasped behind his back, but the expression of his face contrasted strongly with the calm indifference of his manner; it was excited, eager, and his glance wandered restlessly down each path that ran between the closely clipped green hedges.
Felicitas sat motionless watching him; she had involuntarily pressed her right hand upon her throbbing heart; a strange emotion took possession of her—she dreaded the moment when his eyes must rest upon her. More and more slowly he advanced along the graveled path that encircled the lawn. His head was bare—was it his strange, unfamiliar expression, or had his face grown paler!—Felicitas thought him changed.
He grasped the bough of an apple-tree, pulled it down and examined with much interest the growing fruit. The branch swung back again, and he pursued his way. Now he was coming straight toward Felicitas. Stooping, he hastily picked something at the edge of the grass.
"See, Felicitas, it is a four-leaved clover," he said, without looking up.
The words were uttered as quietly and easily as though his intercourse with her had never been interrupted or shadowed, as though it were a matter of course that he should find her sitting there under the chestnut-tree; yet there was, at the same time, a something in his manner which bound her by a spell to the spot.
"People say that the four-leaved clover brings good fortune to its finder," he continued, coming quickly toward her across the grass. "I will see how much of the proverb is pure superstition."
"He was standing before her. There was a certain tenseness in his bearing—it seemed instinct with the whole force of his will. The clover leaf fell—he stretched both hands towards Felicitas.
"Good-evening!"                                                    
The voice that uttered these two commonplace words were tremulous with feeling. Ah, he should have adopted that tone nine years ago to the child who was longing with all the ardor of her passionate little heart for love and sympathy—to the girl whom he had so long; ill-treated the familiar greeting, thrilling with the joy of return, was absolutely incomprehensible. Yet she raised her hand, she, the pariah who had declared that she would reject his help even though it were offered to save her from death—urged by some incomprehensible power —for one moment laid her right hand in his. It was a sort of marvel, and so he seemed to consider it; a single unguarded movement might frighten it away forever. With all the self-command he had won in the practice of his profession, he adopted a different one.
"Has Anna given you much trouble?" he asked, sympathizingly.
"On the contrary, the child's helplessness touches me —I am fond of taking care of her."
"But you look paler than usual, and the sorrowful lines around your lips seem to me more distinct than ever. You said just now that the child's helplessness touched you—others are dependent too, Felicitas. I will show you that it is so. I suppose you have not given a single thought to those who left the little town of X------to seek new strength for mind and body in the bracing air of the forest."
"I had neither time nor opportunity to do so," she replied, blushing deeply.
"I supposed so. But I was more kind. I thought of you. You shall hear when and where. I saw a noble young fir-tree growing alone upon a rocky cliff—it seemed as if it had been wounded and hurt in the forest at its feet and had taken refuge on the lonely height. There it stood, firm and gloomy, and my imagination lent it the contours of a human face with a familiar expression of haughty disdain. A thunder-storm came, the rain lashed its branches, and the wind pitilessly shook them, but after each assault it reared itself, again, and stood more steadfast than before."
Felicitas raised her eyes with a glance of mingled shyness and defiance. He had come back greatly altered. This man with the cold steel-gray eyes, ex-devotee and acetic, thorough conservative, whose every spark ofpoetic feeling must have been stifled by his adherence to line and rule, was telling her, in his deep voice, hitherto devoted solely to the service of science, a fairy-tale invented by himself, whose meaning she could not misunderstand.
"And just think," he continued, "there I stood in the valley below, while my companions rebuked the unpractical professor for allowing himself to be drenched to the skin instead of seeking shelter. They did not know that the sober, dull physician was gazing at a vision neither rain nor tempest could banish. He saw a bold traveler leave the wood below, climb the rocks, and throw hit-arms around the fir, saying, 'You are mine!' And what happened then?"
"I know," the girl interrupted, in a low, angry tone "the lonely tree remained loyal to itself and used its weapons."
"Even when it saw that he longed to clasp it close to his heart, Felicitas? When it perceived that it could rest on this heart sheltered from every storm, that he would guard it tenderly, like the very apple of his eye all his life?"
The narrator had evidently become passionately interested in the fate of these two visionary creatures, for he spoke with quivering lips, his voice vibrating with the tones that had so touched Felicitas's heart beside the child's sick-bed—but they had no power now.
"The lonely fir must have had sufficient experience to know that he was merely telling it fairy-tales," she answered, harshly, " You say yourself that it had defied the assaults of the storm—it had grown strong and needed no support."
Felicitas had not failed to notice how the color had slowly faded from her companion's face—for a few seconds he was ashy pale. He seemed about to turn and leave her, when steps were heard approaching, and he stood still beside Felicitas, quietly awaiting his mother who leaning on the widow's arm, was approaching between the hedges.
"Well, John, do you suppose it is agreeable to me to have you stand there, keeping Caroline from her work and making us wait an endless time for our supper? Or do you imagine I am fond of eating omelets as tough as leather?"
The young widow dropped her aunt's arm and crossed the lawn. She was by no means so pretty as usual; her fair curls hung tangled in wild confusion on her cheeks, whose flush was too deep for beauty, and her eyes sparkled with a baleful light.
"I haven't been able to thank you for taking care of little Anna during my absence, Caroline," she said. The words were intended to sound pleasantly, but the gentle accents were sharper and higher than usual, the tone was almost shrill. "But here you stand like a hermit under this lonely chestnut-tree—how was anybody to find you? Have you often played the role of an interesting recluse? That would make it easier for me to understand why I discover that Anna has been so shamefully neglected. I have just been giving Rosa a good scolding about it; her hair hasn't had the least care; her skin is so tanned that she looks like a little Hottentot, and I am afraid that she has been overfed."
"Have you no more reproaches for her nurse, Adele? Think!" said the professor, in a tone of cutting contempt. "Perhaps it is her fault that your child has scrofula, possibly she is to blame for the numerous showers in the Thuringian forests that have spoiled your temper, who knows—" he stopped and turned scornfully away.
"Yes, you had better not say it, John," cried the young widow, struggling with her tears. "I am almost inclined to believe that you don't care what you say to me. I did not mean to offend you, Caroline," she continued, turning to Felicitas, "and that you may see that I have neither withdrawn my confidence nor feel the least resentment, I beg you to take care of Anna to-night. I am tired out by my journey."
"By no means!" said the professor, sternly. "The time for these perpetual sacrifices is over. You understand how to make other people useful admirably well, Adele; henceforth, you must take charge of your child yourself."
"Well, I am glad of it!" cried Frau Hellwig. "Now the girl can weed the beds thoroughly to-night. I can't ask Heinrich and Frederica to do it, they are growing too old."
A deep flush crimsoned the professor's face. Difficult as it usually was to read the expression of his features, they now clearly revealed shame and embarrassment. Perhaps he had never before fully realized the position into which he had himself forced this gifted young creature. Felicitas instantly left her place under the chestnut tree; she knew that these few words from Frau Hellwig were a command which must be at once obeyed, if she did not desire to hear a torrent of sharp reproaches. But the professor stepped in front of her.
"I think I have a word to say here as guardian," he remarked, with apparent calmness, "and as such I do not wish you to perform work of this kind."
"Aha—perhaps you would like to put her into a glass case?" cried his mother, planting her huge foot on the grass and advancing with more speed than usual. "She has been brought up precisely as you directed. Shall I show you your letters in which you repeated over and over again, till I was fairly tired of it, that she must be trained to work and could not be kept under too rigid discipline?"
"I have no idea of denying a single iota of what has been done by my express desire," replied the professor, in a dull but steady tone, " nor can I repent a course that proceeded from an honest conviction and the sincere desire to do what was best—but I shall never be guilty of the weakness of obstinately persisting in an error for the sake of consistency, and therefore I shall now state that my opinions have changed, and so I must act differently."
Adele stooped as she heard the last words and, plucking a clover blossom which the scythe had spared, tore it to bits. Frau Hellwig laughed scornfully.
"Don't be ridiculous, John," she said, with icy contempt. "A man of your age can not alter his opinions so suddenly; they must be firm and strong or his whole life will be mere botchwork. Besides, you did not act alone; I took my part in the matter, and I think my whole life should prove that, by God's blessing, I have always done right. I should be very sorry if the Hellwig weakness were now to show itself in your character, for—I tell you plainly—our lives would lie apart. So long as the girl stays in my house she will be my servant, and shall not spend one idle moment; that settles it. After she leaves me she may be utterly useless—for aught I care, fold her hands in her lap and play the great lady,"
"That she never will do," replied Felicitas, smiling furtively, as she glanced at her hands, beautifully shaped, but brown and hardened by toil. "Labor is one of the conditions of her life. Will you be kind enough to tell me which beds are to be weeded, that I may begin?"
The professor, who had maintained his usual calm demeanor under his mother's hitter words, suddenly turned and looked angrily at Felicitas.
"I forbid you to do it," he said, in a stern, resolute tone, while his brows contracted in a heavy frown. "If my authority as guardian has no power to subdue your obstinate resolution, I will appeal, as your physician, to your reason. You have overexerted yourself in nursing little Anna. Your whole appearance proves it. In a short time you will leave my mother's house—it is our duty to see that you at least enter upon your new duties in good health."
"That is a reason which should be considered," said Frau Hellwig. To her ears, which had hitherto waited in vain to hear her son reproach Felicitas, the words, "obstinate resolution," were evidently music. "For aught I care she can go back to the house now," she added, "though I really don't see how that little nursing could have done her any harm. She is young, and has always had plenty to eat. Other girls in her position have to work night and day, John, and yet what red cheeks they have!" She took the young widow's arm and went back across the lawn, expecting her son to follow—Adele evidently from resentment and anger, avoided looking back at him. At first he seemed to intend to accompany them, but after walking a few steps turned back, and while the last fold of the luckless pale-blue dress was vanishing behind the hedge, he came slowly toward the tree, and stood for a few seconds in silence beside Felicitas, who was tying the strings of her straw hat under her chin. Suddenly he stooped and looked under the broad brim, which entirely concealed the young girl's eyes and brow. His face still betrayed irritation, but his glance softened as soon as he met her eyes.
"Do you not feel that you have wounded me very deeply today?" he asked, shaking his head, in a tone as gentle as though he were speaking to a child.
She was silent.
"Felicitas, it is impossible for me to believe that you are one of those women who find genuine enjoyment in hearing a man's lips plead for pardon," he said, very earnestly, yet not without an accent of reproof in his tone.
She started, and her fair face, so virginal in its purity, flushed to her very brow.
"Such petitions, in my eyes, must always bring pain to the offended party," she answered, after a. pause, in a tone far more gentle than the one in which she was accustomed to address him. "But I would not, on any account, listen to them from those in whom, according to the arrangements of society, a special dignity is vested. Children should ask their parents' forgiveness, but I cannot imagine the case reversed. Nor can I—" she paused, while the faint flush again tinged her face.
"Nor can you desire to see a man humble himself before you, Felicitas. Is that what you were going to say?" he interrupted, quickly completing her unfinished sentence, his voice thrilling with joy. "But such noble views must be consistently carried out," he continued, after a moment's silence. "And now be really kind, and reflect whether it is not a woman's duty to hold out a helping hand to a man who desires to repair an error! Stop, I want no answer now. I see by your eyes that it would not be what I wish. I will wait patiently—perhaps a time may come when the angry fir-tree on the height will not use its weapons."
He went away. Her eyes rested on the ground where lay the four-leaved clover which had fallen from his hands and which he had gathered as a symbol of good fortune. It was lying on the closely cut lawn with its four little leaves delicately spread out, as though it had been painted. She would not pick it up—she had nothing to do with his happiness—but—she made a wide circuit around the tiny green prophet—she would not actually crush it.
CHAPTER   XXI.
AFTER a succession of beautiful days, filled with sunshine and spring breezes, a leaden sky overhung the little town of X------The clouds seemed actually to rest on the summit of the tall tower, whose round white shaft, surmounted by a glittering green top, rose into the air like a stalk of asparagus. On such gloomy days the old house on the market-place always seemed to reassume the air of aristocratic seclusion it had worn in the far-off days when the portraits of robber-knights still hung in its halls and it was still pervaded by the dark spirit of the Middle Ages, which had fled before the light of the present time.
To-day all the curtains in the front of the house were closely drawn. The councilor's widow was suffering from a violent headache, and moreover was in such an indescribable state of excitement that her rooms were darkened and every sound precluded. The face which year in and year out had appeared punctually every morning behind the asclepias plant at the window of the ground floor was not seen to-day. The gray skies overhead seemed a presage of evil for the day, which was in truth to be one of the grayest and dreariest in Frau Hellwig's whole life—it was the day of the reading of the old mam'-selle's will. Only the two sons of Frau Hellwig, and Heinrich, had been summoned by the lawyer—she had apparently been entirely ignored—but she represented her absent son Nathaneal, and therefore was obliged to be present during the reading.
Toward noon, accompanied by the professor, she returned to the house, while Heinrich followed at a respectful distance. Deaths and dangerous illnesses among her friends and acquaintances had been powerless to effect any change in this woman's marble features—her strong will that would not bend, her deep piety which had always submitted without a tear to these visitations, had often been represented to some weak, despairing wife or mother as a model of lofty resignation. But to-day the little town beheld the unwonted spectacle of seeing the pattern of immovable strength somewhat shaken. The stately lady's cheeks wore the flush of excitement, her measured tread bore signs of haste, and though she spoke in subdued tones to the son walking silently at her side, it was plain that her whispered words were extremely vehement.
Spite of her headache, Adele had evidently been standing behind her curtains, watching for their return. As soon as they entered the hall she came down-stairs, pale and hollow-eyed, it is true, but attired in a most bewitching morning-dress, to hear the result of the morning.
"Well, congratulate us, Adele!" cried Frau Hellwig, with a spiteful laugh. "She has left property amounting in cash to forty-two thousand thalers, and the Hellwig family, to whom the money rightfully belongs, won't get a copper! The will is the craziest piece of work imaginable, but it can't be touched, and we must quietly submit to this outrageous injustice. Now we have the consequence-of utter lack of energy on the part of the men in a family. If I had been head of the household, it could never have occurred. I don't understand how my husband, without the slightest security—could leave that old creature under the roof to do just what she chose without the least oversight."
The professor had been walking silently up and down, with his hands clasped behind his back. A heavy cloud rested on his face, and lightning glances of anger darted from under his knit brows while his mother was speaking. Now he stopped before her.
"Who urged that our old aunt should be banished to the rooms under the roof?" he asked, gravely and impressively. "Who strengthened the head of the house, my father, in his aversion to her, and strictly forbade us children to go near our old relative? You yourself, mother! If you had desired to inherit her property, you should have taken a very different course."
"Why, you don't imagine I would ever have been on friendly terms with her? I, who have walked in the fear of the Lord all my life, associate with that wicked creature who profaned the Sabbath, and never had any religious faith! She knows now that she is shut out from the Lord's presence. No, no power on earth would ever have brought me to that. But she ought to have been declared of unsound mind, and placed under guardianship; there were a thousand ways in which your father might have managed it."
The professor's face grew deathly pale; he cast a look of actual terror at his mother, then silently took his hat and left the room. He had had a glimpse of a frightful abyss. And this rigid bigotry, this horrible Christian pride, which served as a cloak to the most boundless selfishness, had seemed to him for years a halo of glory surrounding his mother's head. This was the character that had appeared to him a pattern of perfect womanhood. He could not help owning that he had once stood on the same ground as that now occupied by his mother and the relative who had been the guide of his youth; nay, he had even surpassed them in intolerance and rigid adherence to forms; he, too, had been a tireless champion in the struggle to increase the power of this particular sect; he had striven to make proselytes and draw people into his own path, in the firm conviction that he should thus lead them to salvation. And that poor, innocent orphan girl, with her little head filled with bright, hopeful thoughts, and her proud, upright sensitive spirit—he had seized her with his stern hand and thrust her into that cold, dark, dreary region. How that sweet nightingale must have suffered—among ravens. He covered his eyes with his hand, as though he were giddy, slowly ascended the stairs, and shut himself into his lonely study.
While these events were occurring in the sitting-room, a similar scene of excitement and wrath was taking place in the servant's room of the Hellwig mansion. The old cook was rushing about with her cap-strings flying, but Heinrich was as unmoved by the tempest of feminine excitement as a rock in mid-ocean. He was dressed in his Sunday clothes, and his face wore a mingled expression of joy, grief, and withal amusement.
"You mustn't think I am envious, Heinrich, that would be unchristian!" cried Frederica. "I don't grudge you your good luck! Two thousand thalers!" She clasped her hands, wrung them, and let them fall again. "You have more good luck than sense, Heinrich! Ah me! How I have toiled all my life, gone to church on the very coldest days in winter, and prayed God to send me some good fortune, and He never gave me anything at all, while you've got all this! Two thousand thalers! Why, it's a power of money, Heinrich! But I can't be clear on one point—can you take this money with a clean conscience?The old mam'selle really ought not to have given away a single penny—it all belonged of right to our employers. When one looks at it in that light Heinrich, it seems like stealing; I don't exactly know what I should do in your place—"
"I'll take it, I'll take it, Frederica," said Heinrich, with perfect composure.
The old cook ran into the kitchen and banged the door behind her.
The old mam'selle's will, which had occasioned so much excitement in the Hellwig household, had been given to her lawyer ten years before. It had been made by her own hand and ran as follows:
"I. In the year 1633 Lutz von Hirschsprung, a son of Adrian Von Hirschsprung, who was murdered by Swedishsoldiers, left the town of X------to settle elsewhere.    Tothis branch of the ancient race of Thuringian nobles, now extinct, here, I bequeath,
"a. Thirty thousand thalers in cash.
"b. The gold bracelet, in the center of which are engraved certain lines of old German poetry, inclosed in a wreath.
"c. The manuscript copy of Bach's opera. It will be found among my autographic collection of famous composer's, in portfolio No.I, and bears the name: Gotthelf von Hirschsprung.
"I herewith request my lawyers to instantly advertise in the papers—repeating the appeal, if necessary—for any descendants of the aforesaid branch of the Hirschsprung family. If, at the end of a year, no claimant has appeared, it is then my wish and will that this capital of thirty thousand thalers, with the proceeds of the bracelet and the Bach manuscript when sold, shall be given to the mayor of the townof X------to be used by him as a fund for the following purpose:
"2. The interest of this capital, which is to be safely invested, is to be annually distributed in equal portions to eight of the teachers employed in the public schools of X------, in such a manner that all shallreceive a portion in regular rotation, without discrimination of persons. Directors and professors have no claim.
"I make this disposition of my property in the firm belief that it will be of as much service as though I should endow a new institution. The teachers in the public schools are still the step-children of the State; the men whose labor forms so large a part in the foundation of national prosperity are still exposed to painful pecuniary anxieties, while they enrich thousands by their intellectual toil. May others also fix their eyes on this dark shadow upon this bright epoch of progress, and aid in the elevation and support of a calling still undervaluedby so many.
"3. My silver and jewelry, with the exception of the aforesaid bracelet, I bequeath to the present head of the Hellwig family, as heir-looms which must not pass into the hand of strangers; also my furniture andlinen.
"4. My autographic collection of famous composers, with the exception of the aforesaid Bach MS., will be sold by my lawyers, and the proceeds paid to my two grand-nephews, John and Nathanael Hellwig, in token of the sorrow I have always felt that I was not permitted to send them gifts at Christmas."
Then followed legacies to various poor mechanics, amounting to more than twelve thousand thalers, including two thousand thalers to Heinrich and one thousand to her maid.
Heinrich had told Felicitas the contents of the will, as well as he could remember it. The place where the old mam'selle kept her silver was not mentioned, so far as she could learn from his account, and the young girl was greatly delighted. Unless the secret drawer should be discovered by some accident, she would be able to destroy the gray box ere any other eyes should restupon it.
"I shall grieve over it all my life, Fay!" said Heinrich, sadly; they were sitting alone together in the servants' room. "Now you will have nothing at all. If the old mam'selle had only lived twenty-four hours longer, the will would have been changed and you would have been left lots of money—she loved you verymuch."
Felicitas smiled. The courage of youth, confiding in its own strength, with no thought of the fierce strugglefor money, the care of providing for a helpless old age, sparkled in that smile.
"It is all right as it is, Heinrich," she answered. "All those poor people who had legacies need the money more than I, and Aunt Cordula undoubtedly had important reasons for the disposal of the principal portion of the property, which would have had their influence in the making of any other will."
"Yes, yes, there must have been some special tie to those Hirschsprungs," said Heinrich, thoughtfully. "Old Hirschsprung I remember perfectly. He   was a shoemaker and made my first pair of boots; one doesn't forget that.    He lived in the street close by our house, and his boy and our old mam'selle played together when they were children.    The boy afterward became a student, and is said to have been the old mam'selle's lover.    People say, too—and that vexes me most of all—that this love affair was the death of her father, old Herr Hellwig. He would not hear of it, and once he had such a quarrel with her about it and she made him so angry, that he dropped dead on the spot—but I don't believe it.    Soon after the old mam'selle went to Leipsic—the student had nervous fever and she remained with him and took care of him until he   died.     Her relatives were perfectly furious, declared that she had lost her reputation, and cast her off.    The people here did the same thing, and nobody would so much as look at her when she returned. However this may be, it seems queer that those people who went away so long ago should be her  heirs—they certainly couldn't have been any kin to the student.    I don't understand it at all."                                           
The next day the seals were removed from the roomsunder the roof.
Desolate days followed this act. The sky showed an unvarying leaden tint. Day and night the rain fell ceaselessly on roofs and pavements, while the dragon-heads on the old Hellwig house poured torrents of water down into the market-place. Their yawning, wide-open jaws looked grimmer and more wrathful than ever. The muddy stream that plashed down upon the pavements might have been gall and venom Had they not for years watched the treasures in the old house increase, a stream of money constantly flow in, while only a tinyrivulet trickled back into the world, a rivulet most closely guarded. Yet now a most unheard-of thing was to happen—a large sum of money was to leave this house forever, and neither the strong walls nor the iron-featured woman who sat behind the asclepias plant couldprevent it.
During these rainy days Felicitas had retired to the room near the servants' hall. She had been relieved from all hard domestic labor — doubtless by the professor's orders — but she sat actually buried under piles of old linen she was mending ; she was to eat no bread in this house that had not been earnedby toil.
The fountain in the court-yard plashed monotonously; the rain pattered steadily on the broad leaves of the colt's-foot growing in a damp corner; sometimes a cock crowed in some neighboring yard, or the gray tone diffused over every object by the colorless light was broken by a few doves, that perched on the dripping sills and spread their feathers to receive the rain. Light, color, movement seemed repressed, and this apathy extended even to the pale young girl sewing at the window. True, her hand moved steadily and regularly, but the beautiful profile bent over the work almost without motion. The terrible conflicts of life had thus far failed to impress the stamp of suffering and submission upon those features— they had merely grown whiter; it seemed as though they were actually becoming petrified in their expression of unyielding will and tenacious resistance.
But an anxious heart was throbbing under her coarse dark dress, and while her hand mechanically repaired all sorts of rents, her mind was tortured by impending tasks and conflicts. The lawyers had also searched in vain for the old mam'selle's silver and jewelry. At first this fact had had a soothing influence upon the young girl's perturbed mind, but Heinrich had ever since been in the utmost excitement and distress. Frau Hellwig had informed the commission, emphasizing her words with significant glances, that for many years Heinrich and the maid had been the only persons possessing free access to the old mam'selle's apartments—and upon this statement, which much resembled an accusation, the honest fellow had at once been pitilessly subjected to a mosthumiliating examination. He was nearly frantic. What torture it was to Felicitas to be compelled to witness her faithful old friend's agony, without permitting even a hint of the secret to escape her lips. Quiet and composed as he had usually appeared in all the vicissitudes cl life, this suspicion nearly drove him wild, and the young girl had reason to fear that, under the irresistible desire to free himself from this abominable charge, he might commit some hasty or imprudent act at the very time when the utmost caution was needful to guard the old mam'selle's secret.
It was now doubly difficult to reach the rooms under the roof. On the day that the seals were removed, the professor had walked through his old aunt's apartments in a state of the utmost amazement, and then, as head of the house, had instantly taken formal possession of them. Possibly, at the sight of their original and charming arrangement, a light had suddenly dawned upon him concerning the character and attainments of the lonely exile. He would not suffer a single piece of furniture to be moved from its place, and was very angry with the councilor's widow because she took a needle out of thepin-cushion.
He apparently intended to spend the remainder of his stay in his mother's house in the rooms under the roof. He only came down to the sitting-room at meal times and then, Frederica said, "looked like a bear." But the councilor's widow had also taken a great fancy to the "charming, quiet nook," and begged her cousin, as a special favor, to let her come there often. Rosa was ordered to sweep the floor, and the young widow dusted the furniture with her own dainty hands. Thus Aunt Cordula's rooms were never unoccupied; besides, the professor had had the old-fashioned clumsy lock on the painted door replaced by a new one. Felicitas's key was of course useless—there was no way for her to enter except over the roofs.
At the thought of being obliged to steal into the rooms like a thief, she always shook her head in abhorrence, and this watching for the first unguarded moment that the unsuspicious occupants were away, was also loathsome to her. Yet she held firmly to her purpose, and a shudder ran through her limbs at the thought that the time still remaining for the fulfillment of her task had now dwindled to two weeks.
At last the rainy days were over. A patch of blue sky overhung the court-yard, the colt's-foot dried its leaves in a cool, refreshing breeze; the swallows, which had countless nests under the roofs and window-sills of the old house, darted in and out, their little blue backs fairly glistening in the warm sunlight. It was a tempting day to spend out-of-doors. Perhaps tea would be served in the garden, and then she could take her way over the roofs. But Felicitas's hope was doomed to disappointment. Directly after dinner, Rosa came to the window and said that she must take Anna to the garden—the professor had promised the child that she might go. Afterward the whole family would come out there to tea.
Felicitas, leading little Anna by the hand, was soon walking "according to orders" through the lonely garden. Instead of the tiles of the roofs or the wooden floor of the lofty gallery, the gravel of the sunny paths was beneath her feet. During the rainy weather thousands of roses had blossomed. On the circle of turf in the front garden stood tall bushes, whose dark, velvety flowers swayed high above the humble blades of grass, like the royal mantle of a king over his throng of subjects; but in the vegetable garden the common centifolia was less arrogant, its beautiful, fragrant crimson flowers grew familiarly beside the thick heads of rape, and mingled their bewitching perfume with the spicy odor of the beds of dill and leeks.
Felicitas passed the beautiful flowers with drooping head, and little Anna limped clumsily beside her, without disturbing, even by a word of childish prattle, the thoughtful reverie of her companion. Felicitas was thinking with burning pain of the rose-seasons of bygone years—the flowers had had quite another beauty and fragrance ere Aunt Cordula's dear kind eyes were closed forever, when she had sat on quiet Sunday afternoons beside her motionless pupil, reading aloud in her expressive voice the pages of some classic writer, while the most exquisite fragrance floated in to them from the balcony, and far away in the distance stretched the green laud of Thuringia. There, too, the sweet feeling of home had gradually grown up in the young girl's soul, she had felt that she had a place in those peaceful, pleasant rooms, guided and protected by motherly love; there, if but for a few hours, she had been free, unrestrained in movements, thoughts, or opinions—and so the roses had been brighter and sweeter, the whole world steeped in more radiant sunshine.
She raised her head and looked over the hedge into the adjoining garden, where she caught the gleam of her neighbor's snow-white cap. The old lady was sitting at a table with her son, and leaning comfortably back in an arm-chair, while her knitting-needles flashed in her fingers, listened as he read aloud to her. It was a peaceful, homelike scene. Felicitas told herself that she should be to some extent free when she went to these people, that she could not fail to make some intellectual progress among persons so kindly and so highly cultured, that at any rate she would not be an automaton, moving "by order," and whose hands must never rest, though neither eyes nor lips were permitted to reveal the existence of an active, independent mind.
Spite of this thought, her heart grew no lighter. Even before Aunt Cordula's death there had been something hidden in her soul which she was unable to comprehend —a vague sense of pain that evaded closer scrutiny like a phantom. Only one thing was certain—it had some connection with the presence of her former oppressor. Before his arrival she had been firmly convinced that his appearance in person would sharpen her anger and resentment, but she had had no idea that these feelings would react so mysteriously upon her own mood.
Now and then the reader's voice was heard over the hedge from the next garden—the tones were musical, but lacked the power, the variety of modulation the years had so wonderfully developed in the once monotonous accents of the professor. Felicitas threw back her head with an indignant gesture. Why should she make the comparison? She forced her thoughts into another direction, and fixed them on a subject which, since the reading of the will, had often occupied her mind. The court had appointed the young lawyer to be curator to the Hirschsprung heirs if, as was probable, they still existed. Advertisements had already appeared in the papers two days.    Felicitas awaited the result with almost feverish impatience—it might bring her bitter pain. If the Hirschsprungs from Kiel should appear in answer to this summons, which promised a large bequest, it would confirm the supposition that the juggler's wife had been disowned by her relatives. But what kind of people must those be, whose affection for a near relative could not be restated even by so tragical a death! Therefore she did not base a single hopeful thought upon the possible appearance of near relatives; she never meant to reveal her identity to them, yet her heart throbbed wildly at the thought that a day might come when her cruel grandparents would meet their unknown, silent grandchild.
The old lady had seen Felicitas and, rising, came forward with her son. Both greeted the young girl very cordially, and the young lawyer expressed his pleasure at the expectation of soon meeting her as a member of his mother's household. From this their talk glided easily into a long conversation. The trained man of the world experienced a feeling almost akin to embarrassment in addressing this grave young girl, who gazed so frankly into his eyes while uttering, in remarkably clear words, the most original opinions. They talked long and freely, alluding to the most varied topics. At last the lady inquired for Anna, and Felicitas took the child in her arms, pointing out with delight the tinge of healthy color that was beginning to appear on the little one's pale cheeks.
In parting the old lady shook hands with Felicitas; her son, too, held out his right hand over the hedge, and the young girl frankly and cordially placed her own within it. Just at that moment the garden gate creaked and the professor entered. He stopped an instant, as though rooted to the spot, then slowly raised his hat and bowed. Felicitas saw a sudden flush crimson his face. The young lawyer opened his lips to address him, but he hastily turned his head away and went on to the summer-house.
"Well, that was one of his real absent-minded greetings!" said the young man, laughing, to his mother. "My good John evidently has in imagination some luckless patient under the knife, and at such times he doesn't know his best friends."
The mother and son returned to the coffee they had left on the table, while Felicitas sought shelter and shade in the garden.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE tall green cypress hedges afforded admirable protection from the sun, from the wind, which for some time had been sweeping rather violently across the open lawn, and from any reproachful glances that might happen to be leveled at Felicitas from the surmmer-house. She knew the professor's face far too well not to be aware that he had been angry and irritated, but not absent-minded. She thought, too, that she knew the cause of his displeasure. He required the most implicit obedience to his medical directions, and from Rosa's description of his practice in Bonn, was accustomed to have his wishes strictly respected. He had repeatedly—and finally with extreme irritation—forbidden Felicitas to carry little Anna in her arms, and yet, today he saw that she had again disregarded his command. At least this was the only way she could explain the look of angry astonishment he had cast at her as he entered the garden.
Felicitas took her seat on a bench upon the dam. Here grew a lonely birch-tree, the elastic boughs, drooping downward from the smooth white trunk, formed a sort of arbor on the bank. The wind was scarcely felt in this sheltered spot—from time to time the grasses trembled as though drawing a longer breath, and the branches swayed gently to and fro. But the stream, swollen by the recent rains, dashed raging along, its gurgling, muddy waves tearing and plucking spitefully at the roots of the hazel bushes growing on its brink.
The child, with her clumsy little fingers, gathered a quantity of wild flowers and begged Felicitas to tie the poor things, most of which had been broken off close to the blossom, into a short-stemmed nosegay for " Uncle Professor." The troublesome task required patience and attention—Felicitas's eyes were fixed intently upon the bouquet in her hands, and she did not see the professor come through the cypress hedge and advance swiftly toward her across the lawn. An exclamation from little Anna made her look up—he was already standing by her side. She attempted to rise, but he gently took her arm, pressing her back again, and then sat down beside her.
It was the first time that she had ever wholly lost her self-possession in his presence. Four weeks ago she would have pushed away his hand with horror and instantly left him—now she sat as though paralyzed, helpless under the spell of the magician. It vexed her that he had recently assumed so familiar a tone in speaking to her—she desired nothing more ardently than to convince him that she hated and abhorred him as fiercely as ever—but suddenly she found that she possessed neither courage nor words to express these feelings. Her timid glance scanned his face—he looked anything but vexed or angry, the deep flush had had vanished Felicitas was provoked with herself, because she could not help owning that the power and determination expressed in the rugged features subdued her against her will.
He sat beside her several seconds in silence. Felicitas felt rather than saw that his eyes were fixed intently upon her.
"Do me the favor, Felicitas, to take that hideous thing off your head," he said at last, in a tone that was almost gay, and, without waiting for the young girl's permission, he gently seized her hat by the brim and flung the shabby, ugly affair contemptuously on the grass. A ray of sunlight, gliding through the dancing leaves, had hitherto flickered over the black straw hat, now it rested on the girl's chestnut hair—a tress glittered like spun gold.
"There—now I can see the angry thoughts behind your brow!" he said, with a faint smile. "A battle in the dark is always uncanny to me; I want to see my enemy—and that I have to deal with a bitter one there" —he pointed to her forehead, "I well know."
Where was this strange preface tending? Perhaps he expected some answer from the young girl, but she remained persistently silent. Her fingers grouped haphazard the buttercups, field-flowers, and grasses the child continually brought her. These little hands, which would not be interrupted in the task they had begun, had lost much of their brown tint during the few days spent in the retirement of her room and looked almost rosy. The professor suddenly grasped her right hand, turned it over and examined the palm—it bore traces which could not be so soon obliterated, the skin was hardened in many places. The young girl who, by the express command of her stern guardian, had been reared to servitude, had certainly done her best to prepare herself for this position in life.
Though a deep flush crimsoned Felicitas's face during this scrutiny—close examination of the palm is almost as trying to very sensitive natures as a fixed stare at the face—she regained at this moment her former resolute bearing. Quietly raising her head she looked up at him, and he let her hand fall—then he rubbed his hand over his forehead several times as if trying to find words to express some embarrassing thought.
"You liked to go to school, didn't you?" he asked suddenly. "Intellectual occupation affords you pleasure?"
"Yes," she answered in surprise.
The question seemed strange—it was so entirely unexpected. But diplomatic phrases, spite of his command of language, were foreign to this man's nature.
"Well," he continued, "I suppose you remember what I asked you to consider the other day?"
"I remember it perfectly.''
"And have certainly come to the conclusion that it is a woman's duty to faithfully assist a man who desires to retrieve an error?"
Resting his elbow on his knee, he leaned forward and gazed eagerly into her face.
''Not entirely," she answered, firmly, letting the hands that held the bouquet fall into her lap, and looking full at her questioner. "I must first know what the reparation is to be."
"Evasions," he muttered—and his face darkened. He seemed to forget that he had hitherto spoken in general terms, and went on angrily: "You need not be so terribly on your guard—I can assure you that the mere expression of your face would deter any one from making any superhuman demand upon you. The point in question is merely that—whatever your mysterious plan for your future may be—you should remain under my guardianship a year longer, and devote this time to the cultivation of your mind. Let me finish!" he cried, frowning and raising his voice, as Felicitas tried to interrupt him. "For once overlook the fact that it is I who am making this proposal, and remember that in providing for your intellectual development I am carrying out the wishes, nay, the express directions of my dead father."
"It is too late."
"Too late?   Young as you are?"
"You misunderstand me. I wish to say that once, when a helpless child, I was forced to accept alms—compelled to submit. Now I am independent, I can work, and shall never accept even a penny that I have not earned."
The professor bit his lips, and lowered his eyelids till his eyes were almost concealed.
"I expected this objection," he answered, coldly, "for I am thoroughly aware of your indomitable pride. My plan is this. You shall enter a school—I will lend you the money, and you shall pay me back every penny later, when you are independent. I know of an excellent school in Bonn, and am the family physician of its worthy principal. You would be well instructed there, and," he added, in a slightly tremulous tone, "our eternal parting would be deferred a little while. In fourteen days my vacation will be over; I shall go back with my cousin to Bonn, and you can accompany us. Felicitas, I begged you a short time ago to be good and gentle. I now repeat the entreaty. Do not obey the whispers of wounded feeling; forget—even if only for a moment— the past, and let me atone for my fault as far as possible.''
Felicitas had listened with a troubled heart. As before, while relating his so-called vision, there was something' alluring in the tones of his voice. He was not so mysteriously excited, but the sincere and earnest repentance, which he so frankly and gravely expressed without the least diminution of his manly dignity, touched her, though against her will.
"If I were still at liberty to determine the course of my future life, I would willingly, gladly accept your offer," she said, in a more gentle tone than she had ever used to him—"but I am bound. The day I leave Frau Hellwig's house, I shall enter upon my new duties."
"Is this irrevocable?"
"Yes—my promise is sacred to me. I will never change or trifle with it, though it should entail the greatest inconveniences upon me."
He hastily rose and stepped out beyond the shade of the birch-tree.                                                                i
"And may I not even be permitted to know what you intend to do?" he asked, with his face averted.
"Oh, yes," she answered, quietly. "I should have told Frau Hellwig before, if I had had an opportunity. Frau Frank has engaged me as her companion."
The last few words seemed like a sudden thunder-clap. The professor turned abruptly, his face flushed crimson.
"The lady over yonder?" he asked, as though he could not believe his ears, pointing to the next garden. Then, swiftly returning to his place under the tree, he added in a resolute, imperious tone. "Dismiss that idea from your mind at once, I will never consent to it."
The young girl rose with an indignant gesture—the flowers fell unheeded to the ground.
'Your consent?" she said, proudly. "I do not need it. In two weeks I shall be free, and can go wherever I choose."
"Things have changed, Felicitas," he answered, controlling his anger. "I have more rights over you than you suppose. Years may pass before these rights expire, and even then—yes, even then it is a question whether I will release you."
"We will see about it!" she said, coldly and resolutely.
"Yes, you shall see about it. I had a long talk yesterday with Doctor Boehm, my father's most intimate friend, concerning the particulars of your reception into this house. You were confided to my father's care on the express condition that he should keep you under his protection until your father claimed you, or until some other faithful protector was found who would give you his name. My father appointed me his representative in case of his death, and I am firmly determined to maintain these conditions."
Felicitas's calmness now utterly deserted her.
"Heavenly Father " she cried, clasping her hands in frantic despair. "Must my misery never end? Am I to be forced to live on forever in this wretched state of dependence? For eight years I have been supported by the thought that my eighteenth birthday would release me from this thralldom. This thought alone has enabled me to seem outwardly calm and unmoved while suffering secret tortures. No, no, I am no longer the patient creature who will allow herself to be trodden under foot oat of respect for the memory of the dead. I will not: I will have nothing more to do with these Hellwigs! I will shake off these hateful fetters at any cost."
The professor seized both her hands—his face had grown ashy pale as she uttered the last words.
"Calm yourself, Felicitas!" he said, soothingly, though his voice was almost inaudible. "Do not rage like a helpless little bird that would rather dash out its brains against the bars of its cage than submit to what is inevitable. Hateful fetters! Do you not even know what intense pain your harsh, reckless words are giving me? You shall be free, perfectly free in thought and act, only guarded and protected like a tenderly beloved child! Felicitas, you shall now learn what it is to be loved and cherished. Only this once more will I appear in the character of the imperious guardian, do not make my task harder by your resistance, which must be unavailing—that I assure you. I shall take matters into my own hands, and break any engagement you may have made."
"You will do that?" cried Felicitas, almost hoarsely, with quivering lips—every drop of blood seemed to have left her face. "But I, too, can act, and you may be sure that I will defend myself against you to my last breath."
Never in all her young, sorely tried existence, had such a tempest raged in her soul as at this moment. Suddenly new, unfamiliar voices rose there, appealing powerfully amid the uproar—they seemed like the echo of his tender words of entreaty. A terrible danger hovered like a dark thunder-cloud over her head, and she felt it instinctively—she must tear herself away from him at any price, if she did not wish to succumb to this threatening peril. Already he seemed to possess some incomprehensible power over her whole being, every harsh word she addressed to him recoiled painfully upon her own heart.
Until now he held her hands firmly in his clasp, and while she was speaking his eyes rested intently upon her features, which for a moment unconsciously reflected the fierce conflict raging in the young girl's soul. The eyes of the physician, who so well understood mankind, had doubtless read far different secrets of the human heart from that of the proud young girl whose very purity and innocence left it unguarded. "You cannot do it," he said, suddenly, with recovered calmness. "My eyes are open, and my arm will reach a long distance. You will not escape me, Felicitas. I will not, under any circumstances, leave you here in X—, nor will I return to Bonn without you."
The garden gate had creaked some time before, but the noise had not been noticed. Rosa now came up to the professor and told him that Frau Hellwig was waiting for him in the summer-house, and the councilor's widow also begged him to come at once.
"Is she ill?" asked the professor harshly, without turning toward the maid.
"No," she answered, in evident surprise, "but the coffee will soon be ready—my mistress is making it herself—and she wants the Herr Professor to have it while it is fresh. The Herr Professor's friend, the young lawyer, is in the summer-house, too."
"Well, I will come," said the professor, but he made no move to go. Perhaps he hoped Rosa would retire again, but he was mistaken. She began to talk to little Anna, who was making a great ado over the "flowers trampled to death" on the grass. At last, evidently annoyed, he walked down the side of the dam. "Don't stay here long," he called back to Felicitas. "The wind is rising and may possibly bring a thunder-storm. Come into the summer-house with Anna."
He disappeared behind the cypress hedge, but Felicitas walked rapidly along the whole length of the dam. Her thoughts, usually so clear, were in a chaos. She struggled in vain to win the composure necessary to survey her present situation and acquire a mastery of its complications. So she must continue to wear the yoke, and besides being denied independence for a long period to come, she would be compelled to live in his immediate vicinity, hold daily intercourse with him for years, as if this was not the most terrible task that could be imposed upon her! Had she not done everything in her power to show him that she hated him with her whole soul, that she would remain implacable as long as she lived! Was it not, therefore, the very refinement of cruelty to try to bind her in this way? No, she would rather a thousand times continue to endure Frau Hellwig's ill-treatment for years than to remain even a single month longer with the man who was developing a demoniacal power over her. His mere voice could already disturb the calm current of her thoughts—the indescribably tender, gentle tone he now always assumed, stirred every fiber of her heart and made it throb more violently—of course it was the old hatred roused by his approach, but must not a feeling so constantly evoked, and which caused such terrible emotion, at last destroy both mind and body? The tale of the fir-tree had given her much food for thought, now the only possible explanation was confirmed by his words: "Felicitas, you shall now learn what it is to be loved and cherished."
So, spite of her resolute declaration that she would herself decide all questions concerning her future, he intended to dispose of her hand; she was to marry any husband he might choose—in this way she would be cared for, and the wrong done her, which he now admitted, repaired. Her heart fairly shuddered at the thought. How presumptuous, how wicked was such a plan! Could he compel a man to love her? He himself cherished a hopeless passion and, therefore, meant to lead a solitary life—thereby permitting his heart the right to determine her whole future career. He should see that she claimed the same privilege, that she would not be sold like merchandise. What prevented her from instantly going to the lady who had engaged her as companion and beseeching her protection? Ah, the little gray box bound her more firmly to this hated house than any human will would have had the power to do—for its sake she must endure till the last moment.
CHAPTER  XXIII.
LITTLE Anna interrupted the young girl's torturing reverie. Taking Felicitas coaxingly by the hand, she tried to lead her away from the dam. The wind was already blowing violently through the trees—sharp gusts even reached the more sheltered regions of the garden— and the timid little flowers bent before their persecutor. Ever and anon clouds swept across the sun, casting shadows like huge dark wings on the graveled paths and lawn, rose petals were whirled aloft, and even the stiff cypresses beat like stately, grave old ladies of the court.
It was pleasant to be within the shelter of the summer-house. Felicitas seated herself in a garden-chair in the hall, and took out her sewing. The door of the little kitchen, and also that of the drawing-room, stood wide open. It was difficult to fancy anything more charming than the councilor's widow in the character of an active housekeeper. She had tied on a richly trimmed black silk apron, a deep crimson rose peeped out from among her fair curls just over her left ear—she had evidently pulled it from the bush as she passed and placed it unconsciously in its present position, where it produced a most charming effect. Under the dress festooned above her petticoat her dainty little feet clad in cinnamon-colored boots tripped about with child-like lightness and grace, and the expression of the blooming face was also that of a happy, innocent child zealously performing some momentous duty. Who would have given the name of "widow" or "mother" to this embodiment of child-like artlessness?
While Adele was bustling about the fire in the kitchen, Frau Hellwig and the young lawyer were eagerly talking together in the next room—the subject of the conversation was the old mam'selle's will. Heinrich and Frederica had already told Felicitas that their mistress no longer talked or thought of anything that was not connected with this unlucky affair. Felicitas caught a moment's glimpse, of her face—she thought it strangely haggard and altered, and there was an unwonted degree of haste in her speech and manner. Wrath and resentment had evidently retained the upper hand in this woman's soul.
The professor took no part in the conversation; nay, it seemed as though he did not even hear what was passing. He was pacing up and down the room with his hands clasped behind his back, apparently lost in thought, only raising his eyes as he reached the open door, to gaze intently at the girl sewing in the hall outside.
"I shall never be at ease about it, never so long as I live," Frau Hellwig repeated. "Every penny of it was earned by the Hellwigs! Now perhaps some worthless fellow will come and squander in a short time the savings of an honorable family—what a source of blessing that money would have been in our hands."
"Oh, aunt," said the young widow, soothingly—she had just entered the room with the coffee-pot and was filling the cups—"how you are worrying again over that wretched will, which so plainly wears out your strength ; you will be ill. Think of your children, of me, dear aunt, and for our sakes try to forget."
"Forget?" cried Frau Hellwig, angrily. "Never! No one could do so who had any strength of character, which, however, the young people of the present day lack strangely " she cast a furious look at her son, who was still pacing up and down. " The disgrace of such an injustice stirs my blood and makes my nerves quiver —I cannot subdue it. How can you say such foolish things to me, Adele? You are often terribly frivolous."
The young widow's face flushed, a defiant expression appeared around her mouth, and the cup she was passing to her aunt rattled in her hand, but she possessed sufficient self-control to repress the sharp answer that was evidently hovering on her lips.
"I certainly do not deserve your reproach," she said very gently, after a moment's silence. "No one can take this provoking affair more to heart than I. It is not only that I regret the pecuniary loss to you, dear aunt, and to my cousins, but it gives my womanly nature the keenest pain to be forced to encounter such moral depravity. Here has this spiteful old creature lived half her life under your roof, all the while plotting how she might most deeply injure her nearest relatives. She quitted the world unreconciled to God and man, with a list of sins upon her soul that must forever shut her put from heaven—it is terrible! My dear John, shall I give you a cup of coffee?"
"Thank you," replied the professor, continuing his pacing to and fro.
The work had dropped from Felicitas's hands. She listened breathlessly to the words uttered by that slandering tongue. True, she had heard from Heinrich that the world had judged the mysterious old mam'selle most harshly, but this was the first time that she had herself listened to the condemnation. How the blood pulsed in her temples! Every word pierced her heart like the stab of a knife, the anguish she now suffered for the dead was keener than the pain of parting.
"Whether the old lady was guilty I do not know," said the young lawyer. "From ail I hear, no one can prove anything positively—the gossip of our good town is content with spreading dark hints. Her will, however, unmistakably shows that she must have been an original woman, endowed with remarkable strength of intellect."
Frau Hellwig laughed scornfully, and contemptuously turned her back upon the bold champion.
"My dear sir, it is the office of your profession to whitewash the blackest crimes, and discover angelic innocence where the whole world has righteously condemned—from that point of view one can understand your opinion," said the councilor's widow, with unmistakable malice. "But I know of another opinion which, pray pardon me, is far more convincing to me than yours. Papa knew her. She had such an unparalleled obstinacy that she literally fretted her father to death. Her indifference to her own fair fame is sufficiently attested by her scandalous visit to Leipsic, and her 'remarkable strength of intellect' led her into the downward path— she was a free-thinker, an atheist."
At this moment Felicitas started up and approached the threshold. With her right hand authoritatively extended, her pale face suffused with a crimson flush, she stood there for an instant, beautiful as an avenging angel. The rosy lips which had so thoughtlessly and lightly made such terrible accusations were involuntarily silenced by this vision.
"She never was an atheist!" said the young girl, resolutely, fixing her flashing eyes upon the face of the calumniator. "A free-thinker! Yes. She searched the works of God without fear of her future salvation, for she knew that every path leads to Him. The conflict between the Bible and Science never disturbed or perplexed her. Her faith was not rooted in the mere letter of the law, but in God's own creations—in her own existence, in the divine gift of thought, in the independent activity of the immortal human soul. She did not, like thousands, go to church to worship God in an elegant bonnet and robe of silk, but when the bells rang, she, too, stood in humble devotion before the Most High, and I doubt whether He sets more value on the prayers of those who hourly call upon His name and with the same lips speak evil of their neighbors."
The young lawyer had involuntarily risen. Resting his hand on the back of his chair he gazed almost incredulously at the brave-hearted girl.
"Then you knew this mysterious lady?" he asked, fairly holding his breath, as Felicitas paused.
"I saw her daily."
"This is most charming news!" said the councilor's widow. The remark was intended to be sarcastic, but the voice had perceptibly lost its steadiness, and a strange pallor had overspread the beautiful face. "Then you can doubtless tell us many a piquant little anecdote from the past life of your esteemed friend," she added, in a tone of studied indifference, while she carelessly played with her spoon.
"She never spoke to me of her early life," replied Felicitas, quietly. She knew that she had aroused a terrible storm; she must now await it calmly with cool self-possession.
"What a pity!" lamented the young widow, satirically, shaking her fair locks—the bright color had already returned to her cheeks— "But I particularly admire your rare talent for acting, Caroline. You managed to conceal this secret intimacy wonderfully. Dear John, do you still repent your fancied false opinion of this girl's character?"
The professor had stood still in astonishment when Felicitas first appeared on the threshold. The words of vindication—sharp, caustic, yet full of enthusiasm, had fairly poured from her lips—her keen, logical intellect never lacked the power of instant and forcible expression. The last question of the councilor's widow remained unanswered. His eyes rested steadily on the young girl and he smiled, as, in spite of her self-control, he saw her shrink at this sting.
"Was this your secret?" he now asked.
"Yes," replied Felicitas, and her earnest eyes sparkled; strangely enough, at the sound of his voice, she suddenly felt that she was not to stand alone in the inevitable struggle.
"You intended to live with my old aunt; this was the happiness you were anticipating?" he continued.
"Yes."
Had not the councilor's widow been so much absorbed in the sight of the "unmasked hypocrite," she would have been startled by the joyous light that now sparkled in the professor's eyes and transfigured his grave face.
These questions and answers had succeeded each other with such lightning-like rapidity that Frau Hellwig had had no time to recover from her surprise. She leaned back in her chair as though she had turned into a stone statue, the stocking she was knitting had dropped from her hands, and the ball of white yarn had rolled into the middle of the floor.                                                                               
"This is an extremely interesting discovery for me," said the young lawyer, hastily approaching Felicitas. "Do not fear that I shall try to discover the secrets of the dead; far be it from me to have such a thought. But, perhaps, you may be able to give me information concerning the incomprehensible absence of certain articles bequeathed."
Good heavens! She was to be questioned about the missing silver. She shuddered from head to foot, het face grew whiter than snow, she cast down her eyes in evident confusion; at that moment she was the very embodiment of conscious guilt.
"As a passionate lover of music and eager collector of autographs, I have been in a state of delighted anticipation ever since the reading of the will," the young lawyer continued, after a momentary pause occasioned by his surprise at the girl's sudden change of expression. "The will expressly mentions a manuscript collection of the works of famous composers; hitherto we have searched for them in vain. Many persons assert that the deceased lady was unsound in mind, and this portion of the bequest was a mere delusion, a chimera. Have you ever seen such a collection in her possession?"
"Yes," replied Felicitas, drawing a long breath, but deeply incensed by the assertion. "I knew every sheet of it."
"Was it large?"
"It comprised the names of nearly all the famous composers of the last century."
"An opera by Bach—but I believe there is some mistake in this point—is also frequently mentioned in the will.    Can you remember the title of the work?" the lawyer added with the keenest interest.
"Oh, yes," replied the young girl, quickly. "There was no mistake there either. It was an operetta. Johann Sebastian Bach composed it for the town of X-----, and it was performed in the old town-hall. The title was, 'The Wisdom of the Magistracy in Establishing Breweries.'"
"Impossible!" cried the young man, fairly starting back in the intensity of his amazement. "Then this composition, which has been a sort of myth to the musical world, actually existed?"
"The partitur was written by Bach's own hand," Felicitas replied. "He gave it to a certain Gotthelf von Kirschsprung, and the deceased afterward received it as a legacy."
"These are priceless disclosures! And now I beseech you to tell me where the collection is to be found."
She suddenly confronted a precipice. Indignant that Aunt Cordula's soundness of mind should be doubted, she made every effort to refute the horrible slander. In the zeal of her defense she had not considered the point to which her revelations were necessarily leading her. Now she must give a direct answer to this difficult question. Should she tell an untruth? No, that was impossible.
"So far as I am aware, it is no longer in existence," she said, in a much lower tone than before.
"No longer in existence? I suppose you mean that it no longer exists as a whole?"
Felicitas was silent—she wished herself miles away from this eager questioner.
"Or," he continued, anxiously, "can it have been destroyed? In that case you must tell me how the accident occurred."
This was indeed a painful situation. There sat the woman who would be compromised by her statement. How often, in moments of passionate excitement, a wicked longing for revenge upon her heartless tormentor had flamed fiercely in her soul! She had then thought it would be sweet to see this detestable woman suffer. Now the moment had come—she could humble the great lady, convict her of an illegal act. How little she had known the nobility of her own nature! She was utterly incapable of vengeance! She cast a glance at her foe, and encountered a lock like the glare of a tigress—it made no impression upon her.
"I was not present when the collection was destroyed, and can therefore give no information whatever on the subject," she replied, in a tone so firm and resolute, that it was evident she could not be induced to make any further disclosures. But this act was to cost her dear, for the tempest that had been muttering over her head now burst in all its fury. Frau Hellwig had risen, and resting both hands on the table before her, stood there with a colorless face and eyes flashing with satanic wrath.
"Miserable creature, do you think you must spare me?" she cried, in a voice quivering with rage. "Do you dare to imagine I desire to conceal any of my acts from the world, and you can aid me in such concealment —you!" She turned scornfully away and fixed her gray eyes, with all her former coldness and proud superiority, upon the young lawyer. "I am accustomed, it is true, to account for my actions only to God, my Maker," she said. "Whatever I do, is done in His name, for His honor, and for the maintenance of His holy Church. Nevertheless, you shall learn what has become of your 'priceless' papers, mainly for the purpose of preventing this person from cherishing, even for one moment, the delusion that I could possibly make common cause with, her. The late Cordula Hellwig was an atheist, a lost soul—whoever defends her merely proves that he is following the same path. Instead of praying for the restoration of her lost peace of mind, she deadened the voice of her conscience by the poison of worldly music, full of sensual allurement. Even on Sunday she profaned my quiet house with her wicked practices. All day long she sat over those evil books, and the more she was engrossed by them the more obstinately she rejected my efforts for her salvation. Since that time I have had no desire more ardent than to forever efface from existence these worthiest devices of the human mind, in which God has no share, and which are mere lures to attract the soul from the path leading to true salvation. I burned the papers, my dear sir."
The last words were uttered in a raised voice, and with an expression of the utmost delight.
"Mother!" cried the professor, in a tone of horror, hastily advancing toward her.
"Well, my son?" she asked, motioning him back. Drawing herself up to her full height, she stood as though clothed in brazen armor. "You evidently intend to reproach me for having deprived you and Nathanael of this valuable bequest: she continued, with inexpressible scorn. "Calm yourself; it has long been my intention to replace the few paltry thalers from my own property. You will profit by my act."
"The few paltry thalers?" repeated the young lawyer, trembling with astonishment and anger. "Frau Hell-wig, you will have the pleasure of paying your sons five thousand thalers in cash."
"Five thousand thalers?" Frau Hellwig laughed. "That is a comical idea, indeed! Those miserable soiled papers! Don't make yourself ridiculous! "
"Those miserable soiled papers will cost you dear enough, I repeat," replied the young man, trying to control himself. "I will hand you tomorrow a statement, written by the testator herself, in which she values the collection at five thousand thalers, not including the Bach manuscript. As to the latter—pray understand me, Frau Hellwig—no one can yet tell in what difficulties you may have involved yourself with the Hirschsprung heirs by the destruction of this priceless work." He struck his forehead with his clinched hand in the extremity of his dismay. "incredible! " he cried. "John, at this moment let me remind you of the assertion I made a few weeks ago, you could not have a more striking illustration of it."
The professor made no answer. He had gone to a window and turned his face toward the garden. No one could tell what impression had been produced by the excited words of his friend.
It seemed for a moment as though Fran Hellwig understood that she had probably exposed herself to an endless succession of annoyances; her bearing suddenly lost its air of infallibility and immovable confidence, the scornful smile she strove to retain was a mere distortion of the lips. But how could anything occur to make the great lady repent of any step she had taken? She did everything in the fear of the Lord, so no mistake, no error was possible. She quickly recovered her composure.
"I will remind you of the remark you made only a short time ago," she said in a cold, formal tone. "There is good reason for the statement that the dead woman was of unsound mind—it would not be difficult for me to adduce sufficient proof of the fact. Who will then declare that the absurd valuation was not written under the delusions of insanity?"
"I!'' cried Felicitas, resolutely, though her voice trembled with contending emotions—"I will try to defend the dead from these attacks so long as I have the power, Frau Hellwig. There never was a sounder, clearer intellect than she possessed. My statement will of course find no consideration; but even should you succeed in overthrowing every other proof of the unclouded brightness of her mind, the portfolios that contained the collection are still in existence—I saved them. Each one has on the inside a complete list of its former contents, and there is an exact account of the date and price of each manuscript, together with the name of the person from whom it was purchased."
"Indeed! So I have reared in my own house an admirable witness against me!" cried Frau Hellwig. "But now I will call you to account. So you have dared to deceive me all these years with this unparalleled insolence? You have eaten my bread, while you mocked at me behind my back? Had it not been for me, you would have been compelled to beg your bread from door to door! Begone from my sight, you shameful hypocrite!"
Feiicitas did not move from the threshold. Her slender figure seemed to grow taller beneath the reproaches hurled at her, her face was deathly pale, but never had the girl's resolute, fearless nature revealed itself so clearly as at this moment.
"The reproach of having deceived you I deserve," she said, with admirable calmness. "I intentionally kept silence, and would have suffered death rather than have permitted even a hint of my secret to cross my lips—that is true! Yet my resolve stood on no strong foundation —one kind, loving word from your lips, one affectionate glance from your eyes, would have overthrown it, for nothing is more repugnant to me than any concealment of my acts. But there was no wickedness in my deception! Who would call the early Christians hypocrites because, in times of persecution, they assembled secretly and in violation of the laws? I too had my soul to save." She drew a long breath and fixed her brown eyes with an expression of the firmest determination on Frau Hellwig's face. "I should have been plunged into the blackest night but for the shelter and protection of the rooms under the roof. In the ever-wrathful and avenging God to whom you pray, who permits the existence of a hell and leads His children into evil that He may try and then punish them—in this implacable Supreme Being I could never believe. My dead friend led me to a God who is all love and pity, wisdom and omnipotence, and who alone reigns in heaven and on earth. The desire to study, the thirst for knowledge, was unquenchable in my soul—had you starved me, Frau Hellwig, it would have been less cruel than your tireless efforts to darken, nay, to kill my mind. I never mocked at you behind your back, for your name was never mentioned to her by my lips, but I have baffled all your intentions—I have been the pupil of the old mam'selle."
"Begone!" cried Frau Hellwig, no longer able to control herself, pointing to the door.
"Not yet, dear aunt!" pleaded the young widow, seizing the outstretched arm. "You will not let such a precious moment slip without availing yourself of it." Then, turning to the young lawyer, she added: "You have just performed your duty admirably as 'a passionate lover of music'—I beg you to inquire with the same zeal for the missing silver and jewelry. If any one has had a hand in their disappearance it is yonder girl."
The lawyer approached Felicitas, whose left hand had clinched the frame-work of the door, and offering her his arm with a low bow, said, with grave kindness:
"Will you allow me to take you to my mother?"
"Her place is here!" suddenly fell in loud, resolute tones from the lips of the professor, who had hitherto been so silent. He now stood beside Felicitas, holding her right hand firmly clasped in his own.
The young lawyer involuntarily started back—both men measured each other silently a moment. There was no trace of friendship in the strange look thus exchanged.
"Why, bravo! Two knights at once, a charming picture," cried the widow, laughing—a cup fell crashing on the floor; at any other time Frau Hellwig would have harshly reproved such carelessness, but now she stood speechless with rage and amazement.
"It seems that I am repeatedly compelled to appeal to the past today," said the young lawyer, in a tone of bitter irritation, interrupting the momentary silence. "Remember, John, that you fully authorized me to take my present step."
"I will not deny an iota of it," the professor answered. "If you desire an explanation of my inconsistency I shall be at your service at any time—but not here."
He drew Felicitas across the threshold and went out into the garden with her.
"Go back to the town, Felicitas," he said, and the gray eyes, once so icy cold, rested on the young girl's face with inexpressible tenderness. "This shall be your last struggle, poor little Fay! You shall spend but one more night beneath my mother's roof—tomorrow a new life shall begin for you."
He pressed the hand he still held, as if unconsciously, closer to his heart, then dropped it and returned to the summer-house.
CHAPTER XXIV.
FELICITAS left the garden with winged steps. The professor was mistaken—she would not spend the evening, far less the night, under the roof of the old mansion. This was the moment for her to go to Aunt Cordula's rooms. In the narrow street she met Frederica, carrying supper out to the garden, so there was no one left in the house except Heinrich. How the wind raged and howled through the gnarled old linden-trees. It swept her resistlessly on—here on the firm, level ground, under the shelter of the thick foliage. What a walk was before her over the steep roofs in that rushing blast!
Heinrich opened the street-door. Felicitas slipped breathlessly past him, entered the servants' room, and took the key of the attic from the wall.
"What are you going to do, Fay?" asked the old man in astonishment.
"I am going to bring back honor to you and liberty for myself.  Keep close watch below!" she called back, as she ran up the stairs.
"You won't do anything dangerous? Listen, Fay, don't be fool-hardy," he shouted—but she did not hear.
He was obliged to remain at his post below, and paced restlessly up and down the hall.
As Felicitas reached the long corridor under the roof, the wind swept over her head in long, moaning blasts, sometimes alternating with low, whistling notes.    The rafters creaked, and the hot, sultry breath of the tempest blew in sudden gusts through openings in the sun-scorched tiles of the gutters. Just at this moment a mottled gray hail-cloud hung over the square formed by the four roofs, pale yellow lightning played over the flower-covered slope, glittered like a deceitful glance on the glass panes of the balcony door, over which tangled garlands of the ivy and scarlet creeper, loosened by the gale swayed helplessly, and brightly illumined the tossing leaves of the wild vines.
"As the young girl put her head out of the attic window, violent gust of wind blew directly into her face—it fairly took away her breath and forced her to shrink back a moment. Letting it sweep by, she leaped out. Any one who had seen the beautiful pale face, with its firmly compressed lips and look of stern resolve, emerge from the dark garret window, must have perceived that the girl was perfectly aware of the terrible danger she was braving and was ready to meet death for the sake of her purpose. What a strange blending of qualities in her nature! An ardent heart, capable of such passionate hate, and so cool and clear a brain!
She ran lightly along the creaking gutters, her clear eyes were not dimmed by dizziness a single second, but her raging foe did not give her much time to take breath — a shrill whistle, and he came down upon her with tremendous fury.    The door of the balcony flew open, several large flower-pots fell crashing from the railing to the floor and the ancient rafters creaked and trembled underFelicitas's feet. She was still on the next roof, but clungwith both hands to the railing of the gallery, which shehad just reached.
The tempest loosened her hair and tossed the heavy tresses as if it longed to scatter them to the four winds, but she stood firm. After waiting patiently a moment, she swung herself over the railing and instantly entered the music-room. The storm roared and raved behind her, but she -no longer heard it—she never thought of the danger threatening her life on her return. With her clasped hands hanging loosely before her, she stood in the cool, ivy-garlanded apartment—she was beholding it for the last time. The still, snow-white faces on the walls looked familiar, and yet strangely altered—once they had filled the room with life, for their living thoughts had been conjured forth to hover round their pallid brows, now they were only ornaments, mere wall-decorations; they gazed down with equal indifference on the radiant face of the coquettish widow, and on the pale, girlish countenance uplifted to them, with streaming tears. The room looked as cosy and comfortable as it had done in Aunt Cordula's life-time, Not a speck of dust lay on the polished mahogany lid of the piano, the ivy was sending forth countless green shoots in proof that it was carefully tended, and in a niche by one of the windows stood the magnificent caoutchouc and palm, two of the old mam'selle's favorites, which had evidently been the objects of special care. But the other recess was altered—the dainty little work-table no longer stood there—the professor had fitted it up for his study.
A burning flush of shame crimsoned Felicitas's face. She was standing like a thief in his room. Who could tell what letters and papers that no stranger's eye should see might be lying on the writing-table! He had left them without anxiety, for he carried the key of the room in his pocket. The young girl darted to the cabinet.
On the side of the old piece of furniture, in the midst of an intricately carved arabesque, was a small metal knob, which could hardly have been discovered by an uninitiated eye.  Felicitas pressed it firmly, and the door of the secret compartment flew open.    There lay the missing valuables in their well-known order.   The large silver coffee-pot and cream-jug, the heavy bundles of spoons tied with silk ribbons, the old-fashioned case containing the diamonds—all these things were in the same places where they had been concealed so many years. There in the corner was the case with the bracelet, and beside it—the little gray box, pushed a little awry, just as the old mam'selle had hastily thrust it in a few weeks before—she bad evidently not touched it again.
Felicitas drew it out with trembling fingers—it was not light—the contents must be destroyed—but in what way? What was it made of?
She cautiously raised the lid—a book somewhat roughly bound in leather lay inside—the stiff pages were gaping apart and the covers were curled and bent by age. A timid glance showed the young girl that the coarse leaves were filled with written not printed words. Aunt Cordula, two eyes are resting upon your secret —eyes in which you have countless times read faithful, child-like love and devotion, and a young heart which has never for an instant doubted you is throbbing violently in the presence of the mystery of your life! It is as immovably convinced of your innocence as it is of the existence of the shining sun, but it longs to know why you suffered; it seeks to learn the full extent of your life-long sacrifice. Your secret shall die; the pages shall crumble into ashes, and the lips which even in childhood knew how to maintain inviolable silence will remain as closely shut as your own.
The young girl's trembling fingers opened the volume. "Joseph von Hirschsprung, StudiosusPhilosophce" waswritten in firm characters on the first page. It was the diary of the young student, the son of the nobly born shoemaker, for whose sake Aunt Cordula was said to have worried her father to death. The writer had used only one side of each page, leaving the other for comments. But these others were covered in close lines with the delicate handwriting of the old mam'selle.
Felicitas read the beginning. Profound, original thought, with rare vigor and brevity of expression, instantly fixed the eye and compelled attention. He must have been a remarkable man—the shoe-maker's young son—with an imagination teeming with superb visions, an incisive judgment, and a fiery heart glowing with passionate love! Therefore Cordula, the daughter of the stern merchant prince, had loved him till the day of her death. She wrote:
"Your eyes are closed forever, and you did not see how I knelt beside your bed and wrung my hands in prayer to God that He would save you for me. Amid the delirium of fever, you called my name in all the sweet, caressing tones of love, but you also used the angry accents of a deeply wounded heart, the cry of fierce revenge, and when I spoke to you, you stared at me with eyes that had no look of recognition and thrust my hand away.
"You have departed from this earth under the delusion that I have broken my vow to you—and when all was over and they had removed you from your couch of pain, I found this book under your pillow. It tells me how I have been loved, but also that you doubted me. I watched in mortal anguish for even one look of consciousness—it would have convinced you of my innocence, and my sad fate would have lost its sharpest sting. Vain! There is no greater torture than an eternal separation, without the power of reconciling the departing soul. Had I committed the worst crime, I could not be more cruelly punished than by this heart of mine, which cries out night and day, hunting me restlessly on like the fugitive Cain.
"Your lofty spirit is now treading wider paths, but I am still wandering on this little earth, and know not whether you can look back to me. I can speak to no one of my secret struggles, nor do I desire it—for where could I find any one that would understand my loss? No one knew you save myself. But I must once relate how it all happened. You have written your thoughts in this book; bold and forcible as they are, they send forth a sweet, refreshing breath of deep, undying love for me. They speak to me as if they possessed living lips and your own sympathetic voice. I will answer you here, on these very pages where your hand has rested, and meantime I will fancy you are standing beside me, that your deep eyes are watching my pen as it makes stroke after stroke till the riddle lies solved before you,
"Do you remember the day little Cordula Hellwig was searching for her pet white hen, which had been chased into the attic by the hunting-dog? It was dark there, but through a chink in the boards -poured a stream of golden light, and millions of motes were dancing in the sunshine. The little girl peeped through the crack. Neighbor Hirschsprung had just stored there the grain garnered from his only field, and high on the golden sheaves sat his wild, dark-haired son.
"'Look for me!' the child called, through the crack. The boy jumped down and gazed boldly and keenly around him. ‘Look for me!' she repeated. There was a crash, and one of the boards behind which little Cordula was hiding fell rattling on the floor of the aristocratic mansion. Ay, it was your deed, and I know you would have leveled many other worthless barriers, destroyed many a carefully erected false system, just as you threw down the plank behind which the little girl was teasing you.
"I cried bitterly in my fright, and you instantly became kind and gentle, and led me through the opening down-stairs into the smoky little room where your father pursued his trade. The board was replaced; but from that hour I crossed the street to see you every day. Oh, what pleasant winter afternoons those were! Outside the wind howled and roared; the rosemary on the window-sill trembled at every gust that raged against the round, leaden-cased panes, and the goldfinch, usually so cheery, retreated to the furthest corner of his cage. But inside the coffee was boiling on the huge stove, your mother sat spinning at her whirring wheel, while your father hammered steadily on his bench to earn his daily bread.
"I can still see his noble, sorrowful face, as he told us of olden days. Then the Hirschsprungs had been a powerful family—a race renowed for their gigantic stature and deeds of daring! What an endless series of heroic acts had been performed by their strong arms. But I trembled at the torrents of noble blood they had shed—I was far more fond of hearing the tale of the knight who had loved his young wife so faithfully and tenderly. He had had two bracelets made, and on each was engraved one half of an old love-song; he wore one, his beloved wife the other. When he fell mortally wounded on the battle-field, one of his foes tried to seize the costly love-token, but the dying man convulsively clutched the jewel with his left hand, letting it be hacked and cut till his esquire came to his aid and killed the assailant. The bracelets were treasured in the family as heirlooms, until—yes, until the Swedes came. How you used to hate those Swedes! They were the source of the ruin of the Hirschsprungs! It was a sorrowful tale, and I did not like to hear it, because your father always ended with: 'Had it not been for that, my son, you might have been educated and become a great man; now there is nothing for you but the cobbler's bench.' Ah, the story had a very different side from what we supposed.
"The Hirschsprungs had always been Roman Catholics —they had remained true to the old faith—when the whole country was converted to the new doctrine of Lutheranism From that time they lived in strict seclusion on account of their religion; but this was not enough to content old Adrian von Hirschsprung, a fierce fanatic, who preferred to give up his ancient mansion and his Thuringian house rather than to live among heretics. He sold his property, except the house on the market-ace, for sixty thousand thalers in gold, and one day his two sons rode off to seek a new home in some Catholic country. Just at that time it happened that the Swedish king, GustavusAdolphus, with twenty-one thousand men came marching through Thuringia. He spent one day in the little town of X------, on October 22, 1632, and his soldiers were quartered in the houses of the citizens. The knight's mansion on the market-place was also crowded with Swedish soldiers, who must have filled old Adrian with rage and loathing.  A terrible dispute arose between him and the half-drunken troopers, who were carousing over their wine in the courtyard, and the dreadful deed was done; a soldier stabbed the gloomy old papist to the heart.  He fell backward with outstretched arms upon the stone pavement of the court-yard, and died at once, without uttering a word.  But the furious Swedes hacked to pieces and destroyed everything they could lay their hands on, and when the sons returned old Adrian had long been lying under the stone flags in the church of the Holy Virgin, and they searched in vain for their property.  The Swedes had carried off the sixty thousand thalers, chests and coffers stood empty, their scattered contents lay torn and trampled on the floors, the family papers were dispersed to the four winds of heaven—not a scrap remained.  This was your father's tale!  Then the house itself passed for a paltry sum into the hands of the Hellwig family.  Adrian's two sons divided the amount between them.  Lutz, the elder brother, left the town, and nothing more was ever heard of him; the other hung his knightly sword upon the wall, and the descendants of those who had fought in the Crusades, and been held in high esteem at royal courts for their courage and chivalrous courtesy, seized plane and awl.
"You did not follow their example As the thick locks above your forehead curled and waved, defying any arrangement save your own, your lofty spirit turned from the narrow paths your father and grandfather had pursued, You sought your own career, though you well knew its course must be thorny and stony, that poverty and want would ever be at your side. You saw only the goal, the bright, glittering, goal—and all your heroic courage ended on a death-bed in an attic-room. The soul fled because the body starved. Omnipotent God! One of thy noblest creatures died from lack of bread! Who could have dreamed of such an end to your existence, that had heard you explaining your fresh, bold, original ideas with such convincing power? Or when you t at the piano, with such marvelous harmonies pour-?o-fourth under the touch of your fingers? It was a most miserable little spinnet that stood in a dark corner of your father's room, but your genius animated it till its dull harsh tones reproduced the roar of the tempest or conjured up the picture of a radiant sky bending over a smiling world. Do you remember how your good father rewarded you, when he was pleased with you? He solemnly unlocked a little antique secretary, and laid a manuscript note-book on the rack of the old spinnet. It was the operetta by Joaann Sebastian Bach—his grandfather had received it as a gift from the great master, and it had been treasured by the family like some holy relic. Not one penny in money, not even a mouthful of bread was found in your room after your death, yet the MS. of the Bach operetta— whose value you knew well—lay on your table, addressed to me.
"On the other side of the page, exactly opposite to where I am now writing are the words: ‘My sweet, golden-haired Cordula came in to-day in her white dress.' It was the day of my confirmation. My stern mother had told me it must be my last visit, for I was now grown up, and it would not be proper for the rich merchant's daughter to associate with the shoe-maker's family. Your parents were not in the room, and I told you of my mother's command. How pale your face grew under your black locks! 'Well, go, then!' you said defiantly stamping your foot, but your voice failed and tears glittered in your wrathful eyes. I did not go —our trembling hands suddenly intertwined in a clasp that was never sundered—it was the beginning of our love.
"Could I have forgotten this and, after having for years resisted my parent's anger and entreaties, suddenly proved faithless to my vow of my own free will? They reproached you with your poverty, called you the worthless son of a shoe-maker, who could never earn a living, threatened to curse and disinherit me; but I remained firm and it was easy, for you were near me. But when your parents died, and you went to Leipsic, terrible days came! One day, a tall, slender man arrived at my father's house, a man with pale cheeks, over which hung long, scanty locks of smoothly brushed dark hair and around whose mouth lurked a disagreeable expression.    I knew that with him evil crossed our threshold— the instinct of a pure heart told me so. My father judged this Paul Hellwig differently. He was a near relative, the son of a man who had made his fortune and now held an important office. So our young cousin's visit was an honor to our household, and how humbly he could bend his tall figure, how sweet and unctuous were the words that fell from his lips.
"You know that the scoundrel dared to ask my love, and you know how angrily I rejected him—he was base and dishonorable enough to ask the aid of my father, who greatly desired the marriage, and now frightful days began. No letters from you reached me, my father intercepted them. I found them, with my own, among his papers after his death. I was treated like a prisoner, but no one could force me to remain in the room after his hated figure entered it. Then I fled through the house like some hunted creature, and the shades of your ancestors protected me. I found plenty of hiding places where I was safe from my persecutor.
"Was it the invisible finger of one of these ancestresses that one day directed my eyes to a gold coin lying at my feet?
"A wall in the poultry-yard had fallen in, and workmen had been there during the afternoon, tearing away the unsound portion. I was sitting on the ruins, thinking of the time when these stones had first been placed on each other—when I suddenly saw the gold coin lying in the grass. It was not the only one; there was a yellow glimmer among the crumbling masonry. Doubtless a large portion of the wall had fallen after the workmen had left the yard, for a pile of broken stones lay heaped together, and among the fragments appeared the sharp corner of a wooden chest —it had been split, and through the crack shimmered the shining gold.
"Alas! I did not understand the sign given by your ancestress.  I called my father, and the man I hated came into the poultry-yard with him.   With little difficulty they lifted out the chest and opened it with the big key still sticking in the lock.
"The Swedes had not taken the treasure. There lay the two bracelets in perfect preservation, there lay the sixty thousand thalers in gold, and the yellow papers and parchments of the Hirschsprung race. Old Adrian lad hidden everything here when the Swedish army approached! I was fairly wild with delight. 'Father,' I cried exultingly,' the shoemaker's son is no longer a beggar!'
"I can still see him standing there! You know he had a stern, grave face, mirthful words died on the lips at the sight of those immovable features, but his whole appearance bore the stamp of inflexible integrity— he was the most respected citizen in the whole town. Yet now he stood leaning over the chest, thrusting his hands into the pile of gold, and his cold eyes fell upon me with a strange glance. 'The shoemaker's son,' he repeated,' what is it to him?'
"'Why, it is his property, father! I held old Adrian's will in my hand and pointed to the name 'Hirschsprung.'
"How terribly his face—usually so rigid—altered.
"'Are you crazy?' he cried, shaking me violently by the arm. 'This house, with all it contains, is mine, and I should like to see the person who can rob me of one penny."
"'You are perfectly right, dear cousin,' said Paul Hellwig, in his gentlest tones. 'But formerly the house, with all it contained, belonged to my grandfather.'
"'True, Paul; I do not deny your claim,' said my father.
"They took the chest into the house. No one knew of the theft except myself, and one last ray from the setting sun which had glided inquisitively over the glittering gold. It vanished to rise again on the morrow and perhaps shine on many a happy human face, but I wandered about, seeing only darkness, sin and crime, wherever I looked.
"That same evening my father told me that Paul Hellwig had claimed and received twenty thousand thalers and one of the bracelets.
"Do you know what I was suffering, while you believed me faithless, false, and frivolous? I stood alone in the conflict against my two tormentors—my stern, but upright mother was dead, and my only brother was away traveling in foreign countries. It was no longer only my love for you that I was required to resign—they demanded secrecy, inviolable secrecy, concerning what I knew to you and to the world—and this I would not promise. Did your heart never throb with a presentiment of evil, during those terrible moments when I steadfastly confronted my angry father, even when his hand was raised to strike to the earth his obstinate, degenerate daughter?
"I had kept old Adrian's will—they did not know it— and one evening, when Paul Hellwig scornfully asked how I intended to prove the discovery of the treasure, I alluded to this document—then came the frightful end. My father had just attended a large dinner-party, his face was deeply flushed, he had evidently been drinking a great deal of wine. Upon my remark he rushed up to me, shook me so violently with his strong hands that I screamed aloud in my pain, and, fairly grinding his teeth, asked me if his honor and reputation were valueless to me. He had barely uttered the last words, when he thrust me back—his face turned purple, he raised both hands to his neck, and the tall, stately man suddenly fell heavily prone at my feet. He was still breathing when we lifted him, nay he was even conscious, for his eyes rested fixedly on my face with a fearful gaze. Then I yielded. When the physician had left the room for a moment, I drew out the paper and held it in the flame of the candle. I could not look at my father, but with averted face, I vowed to keep silence forever, that no stain should rest upon his honor through any act of mine, And Paul Hellwig's face wore the smile of a demon as I made the oath. Yes, I did this deed. I secured to my family the property stolen from you, at the moment when want threw you upon your death-bed,"
CHAPTER XXV.
FELICITAS closed the book exhausted—she could read no further. Outside the wind whistled and raged past the windows till they rattled furiously—but what was this compared to the tempest in the heart of her whose story she had just read.
Aunt Cordula had been tortured. Those who rioted in the stolen wealth had placed themselves on the lofty pedestal of inherited family virtue and uprightness, and rejected her as a degenerate descendant. And the blind world had approved their sentence. She had lived alone in the rooms under the roof, exiled and slandered, yet her lips had never revealed her secret. She had called down no curse upon the little town below—its inhabitants had often eaten her bread and clasped her helping hand in their poverty and want. Her strong spirit had created a world for itself, and the sweet, cairn smile which, in her old age, illumined her features, attested the victory of her lofty soul.
What a strange thing is public opinion!  There is nothing more unreliable, yet how often it interferes with the fate of individuals!  Do not whole families suffer for years on account of a single member who has been condemned and ostracized by the voice of public opinion, and are there not other families who are ever surrounded by a halo of hereditary virtue and integrity, which they have made no effort to gain, merely because their name I passes current in the mouths of the people as "good." Ah, how much bold rascality goes unpunished, how often quiet merit weeps under undeserved attacks—all because of public opinion.
The Hellwig family had always belonged to the class of unassailable reputations.    Had any one ventured to lift his finger against the stateliest and proudest figure among all the portraits in oil in the chamber on the second floor and say: "He is a thief!"—he would have been loaded with abuse.    And yet this man had robbed the poor shoemaker's son of his heritage, had died with his sin on his conscience, and his descendants boasted of the wealth "hardly and honestly earned" of the old house. Suppose he should know this; suppose he who had subjugated his own wishes to "hallowed" tradition, who had so long maintained the axiom that virtue and vice, lofty and common ideas, depended on family inheritance, not on the individual—suppose he could get a glimpse of this book!
Felicitas involuntarily held the volume aloft, as though in triumph, and her eyes sparkled. What prevented her from leaving the little gray box with its terrible contents there on the writing-table? He would come in and sit down unsuspiciously in the pleasant, ivy-wreathed recess. With his brain full of earnest thoughts, he would take up the pen to continue his work on the MS. lying yonder. Then he would see the unfamiliar object before him, lift the lid, take out the book, and read—read till he sunk back with a pallid face, till the steel-gray eyes grew dim with the burden of a terrible discovery. His proud self-confidence would be forever crushed. He must bear in secret the burden of his disgrace. If he seeks to enjoy the luxuries bestowed by his wealth he will know that they are stolen pleasures; if he reads his renowned name —there is an ugly blot upon it—the proud man's peace will be forever destroyed.
Book and box fell rattling on the floor, and the hot tears gushed from Felicitas's eyes.
"No, I would a thousand times rather die than cause him such misery!"
Were the quivering lips that gasped the last words the same ones which, within this very room, had said:
"I should never regret any misfortune that might befall him, and if I could help him win any blessing, I would not lift my finger to do it."
Was it really the old fierce hatred that made her weep, that filled her heart with unutterable grief at the idea that he might suffer? Was the joyous feeling, with which she suddenly conjured up his manly, powerful figure, aversion? Had the happy consciousness that she was destined to protect him from the annihilating blow about to descend upon his head anything in common with the hateful desire of vengeance? Hatred, aversion, longing for revenge—they had all vanished from her soul. Alas, she had lost her stay. Staggering back, she covered her face with her hands—the mysterious struggle in her heart was solved, not by the light of a heavenly revelation disclosing a sunny landscape hitherto unknown, but by a vivid flash of lightning, revealing the yawning gulf at her feet.
Away, away—there was nothing to detain her here longer. Once more across the roofs, then a hasty flight over the threshold of the ancient mansion, and she would be free—never again beheld by the dwellers in the house of Hellwig!
She picked up the book and thrust it into her pocket—but stood holding her breath, poised on one foot in the act of flight, as though she had turned to stone—a door in the passage closed and steps were rapidly approaching the room. She fled to the glass door of the balcony and tore it open; the wind rushed in, blowing big drops of rain into her face. Her eyes wandered over the four roofs; she could not go across them now without being seen—her only safety lay in an instant concealment.
Between the railing and the wall was a narrow space, in which there were no flower-pots. Felicitas climbed out on it, and, reeling under the violence of the gale, clung to the lightning-rod that ran over the roof. She stood high above the balcony. How the wind seized and shook the slender figure, as if trying, in a fresh outburst of fury, to hurl her down into the dark street that yawned on one side. Black storm-clouds were sweeping over her—was there no angel behind that whirling, tossing mass of vapor to extend a protecting hand over the young girl struggling with this fearful danger.
If any one should come out on the balcony at this moment, the girl standing there must be branded as a thief. She had made her way in a locked apartment— the world would call the act burglary. The charge that she knew something about the missing silver had already been brought against her—now her guilt would seem clear as daylight. She would no longer be permitted to cross the threshold of the ancient house voluntarily; she would be expelled from it in disgrace, and, like Aunt Cordula, though innocent, must henceforth mutely bear the shame throughout her life. Would it be so terrible to yield herself to the clutch of the storm and, after a few moments suffering, breathe out her young life on the pavement of the street below?
She gazed with bewildered eyes at the glass door—the person below did not remain, according to Felicitas's last desperate hope, within, but spite of storm and rain advanced further and further along the balcony; the figure now became plainly visible—it was the professor. Had he heard the girl's receding footsteps? His back was still turned to her; even yet it was possible that he might return without having seen her, but down swept the betraying blast, forcing the professor to turn, and, at the same moment, wildly tossing the hair and dress of the fugitive—and he saw the girl clinging to the lightning-rod, with her face, ghostlike in its pallor, gazing down at him through the loosened mass of her hair.
For one moment it seemed to her that every drop of blood in her body forsook her veins under the horrified look the professor fixed upon her, then it rushed wildly to her brain, robbing her of the last remnant of composure.
''Yes, here stands the thief! Bring her to justice! Call Frau Hellwig! I am detected!" she called, with a fierce laugh. She let go the rod for a moment to push back her hair, which was being tossed about her face by the storm.
"For Heaven's sake," shouted the professor, "clasp the rod tightly—you are lost!"
"It would be better for me, if all were over!" came sharply back through the roaring and piping of the tempest.
He did not see the narrow ledge to which Felicitas had climbed, but, tossing down the flower-pots, made himself in a few seconds, a way to her side. Clasping her struggling form with resistless strength, he drew her down to the floor of the balcony and into the apartment. The door slammed loudly behind them.
The girl's strong, brave spirit was broken; utterly bewildered, she did not know that her supposed foe was still supporting her—her eyes were closed, and she did not see how earnestly his gaze was bent on her pale face. "Felicitas," he whispered, in a low, imploring tone.
She started, and the full consciousness of her situation returned. All the resentment and hatred she had cherished for so many years again seized upon her—she tore herself from his embrace, and the old expression of demoniacal wrath once more appeared, stamping a deep line between her eyebrows and stern curves about her lips.
"How can you touch the pariah?" she cried, in a tone of cutting scorn. But her erect figure drooped again, she buried her face in her hands, and murmured sullenly: "Well, examine me—you will be satisfied with my statement."
He clasped her hands gently in his own.
"You must first of all calm yourself, Felicitas," he said, in the gentle, soothing accents which had already touched her against her will, beside little Anna's sickbed. "Do not show the fierce resentment with which you always seek to wound me. Look around you—see where you are! You played here when you were a little child, did you not? Here the lonely woman, in whose defense you spoke so ardently to-day, gave you protection, instruction, and love. Whatever you may have done, or tried to do here, I know it was nothing wrong, Felicitas. You are defiant, angry, and extremely proud, and therefore sometimes led into injustice and harshness—but you are incapable of any act of baseness. I don't know why but I felt sure of finding you up here. Heinrich's shy, embarrassed face and involuntary glance toward the stairs, when I asked after you, confirmed my belief. Do not say a word!" he continued, as she hastily raised her burning eyes to his and opened her lips. "I will question you—but in a totally different sense from what you mean—and I think I have some right to do so, after climbing through storm and rain to bring down my noble fir-tree."
He drew her further into the room—it seemed as though it was too light for him near the glass door, and he needed the partial dusk of the other end of the apartment to be able to speak further. Felicitas felt his hand tremble. They were standing in the very spot where she had just had so terrible a conflict with herself; where she had been tempted to thrust a dagger into his heart, inflict a wound that would paralyze his whole mental existence. She bent her head like a culprit beneath the eye, once so grave and stern, but now animated by a wondrous glow of happiness.
"Oh, Felicitas, suppose that you had fallen!" he began, and it seemed as though a shudder ran through his powerful frame at the bare thought. "Shall I tell you what you have inflicted upon me by the unyielding pride that would rather perish than appeal to the sensible judgment of others? Do you not think that one moment of such mortal agony, such indescribable suffering, can atone for years of injustice?"
He paused expectantly, but the young girl's pale lips did not move; her dark lashes drooped low on her cheeks.
"Your embittered views have become a part of your very nature," he said, after waiting a moment, in a low tone of intense disappointment. "It is impossible for you to understand any change." He had dropped her hands, but he now clasped her right hand again, pressing it closely to his heart. "Felicitas, you had said a short time ago that you had idolized your mother—this mother called you Fay; I know that all who love you give you that name. So I, too, will say: 'Fay, I beg you to forgive me!'"
"I am no longer angry!" she gasped, in a stifled tone.
"That assurance from your lips means much; it even exceeds my expectations; but it is far from satisfying me. What will it avail if we are reconciled, if we must part forever? What consolation will it be to know you are no longer angry, if I cannot hourly convince myself of it? When two people who have been so widely sundered as we, become reconciled, they belong to each other—I cannot bear to have even a single mile separate us. Go with me, Fay!"
"I have a horror of boarding-school life—I could never submit to the monotonous routine," she answered hastily, with evident effort.
A slight smile flitted over his face.
Ah, I would not inflict it upon you! The boarding-school plan was only a subterfuge, Fay. I could not have borne it myself. Why, one or two days might have passed without seeing you, and even when I did a dozen inquisitive school-girls would perhaps stand around us, listening to every word, or the strict preceptress, Frau Berg, would sit by and not allow me to hold this little hand in mine. No, I must be able to gaze at this dear, proud face every hour; I must know that when I return after toiling all day to discharge the duties of my profession, my Fay will be waiting for me. On quiet evenings, within my own four walls, I must have the privilege of pleading: 'Fay, one song.' But all this can only be when—you become my wife."                           
Felicitas uttered a cry and tried to release her hand, but he held it firmly, drawing her still nearer to him.
"The thought alarms you, Felicitas!" he said, greatly agitated, "I will hope that you are only startled by my abruptness, nothing more. I am aware that it will perhaps require a long time ere you can give me what I long to possess—with your character, it will be difficult to hastily transform a 'hated enemy' into an object of warm affection. But I will woo you with the patience of imperishable love; I will wait—hard as the task may be—till you voluntarily say to me: ' John, I will!' I know what marvelous changes occur in the hearts of men. I fled from this little town to escape from myself and the terrible mental conflicts I was enduring, and, lo! the miracle was accomplished. Compared to the agony of longing that possessed me, my former struggles dwindled into nothing. I knew that what I had defiantly and presumptuously resisted would be my life-long happiness. Fay, amid senseless prattle and coquettish faces the lonely girl with her resolute bearing, and the white brow behind which lived such noble thoughts was ever at my side as we journeyed over mountain and valley. She belonged to me, she was the other half of my life; I saw that I could not sever myself from her without dealing myself a mortal blow. And now give me one word of comfort, Felicitas!"
The young girl had gradually withdrawn her hand from his clasp. How was it possible that the change which had taken place in her expression while he was speaking, could have escaped his notice? Her eyes had long been bent upon the floor, her brow was contracted as though by severe physical pain, and her icy fingers were clasped convulsively.
"Do you ask comfort from me?" she answered, in a low, faint voice. "An hour ago you said to me: 'This shall be your last struggle,' and now you plunge me, with your own hand, into the most fearful conflict the human soul can endure. What is a battle against external foes compared to a struggle against ourselves and our own desires?" She raised her clasped hands and threw back her head with a gesture of despair. "I know not what crime I have committed that God should implant this wretched love in my heart."
"Fay!"
He extended his arms to clasp her to his breast, but she put out both hands to repel him, though a light of happiness flashed over her face for a moment. "Yes, I love you—you shall know it!" she repeated, in tones wavering between exultation and tears. "I could say at this moment: 'John, I will!' but these words shall never be uttered."
He started back, with a death-like pallor on his face. He knew "the girl with the resolute bearing and white brow" far too well, not to be aware that this sentence raised an eternal barrier between them.
"You fled from X------, and why?" she began againin a firmer tone, drawing herself up to her full height and gazing intently into the eyes, whose sparkle had suddenly faded. "I will tell you. Your love for me was a crime against your family; it overthrew all your most cherished principles, and therefore was to be uprooted from your heart like an evil weed. That you returned from your flight uncured was no fault of yours—you yielded to the same power which compels me to love against my will. It must indeed have been a terrible struggle, ere all these proud merchant princes were forced to make way for the juggler's child—nothing in the world will make me believe that I could retain this place throughout my life. You told me a few weeks ago of your immovable belief that differences of social rank must inevitably cause unhappiness in marriage. Heaven only knows how many years you have maintained this conviction; it can hardly have vanished in six weeks without leaving even a trace—it is only covered, temporarily disowned. And, though it has yielded to other convictions, what must not happen to efface from my mind the recollection of your words."
She paused a moment in exhaustion. The professor had covered his eyes with his hand, and a slight quiver was visible around his firm lips. Now he let it fall, and said, sadly: "The past is against me—yet you are mistaken, Felicitas. Oh, God! how shall I prove it to you?"
"Not the slightest change has occurred in our external circumstances," she continued, inexorably. "No stain has fallen upon your family, nor have I been elevated from my despised position—it is solely my personal qualities that have wrought this transformation; it would be foolhardy and unprincipled for me to profit by the moment, when, forcibly repressing your firm convictions, you listen only to the voice of love. I ask you on your, conscience, do you not set a very high value on the past of your family? And have you succeeded, even for an instant, in persuading yourself that these ancestors, who all married women whose position was equal to their own, could approve their descendant's marriage with a low-born girl?"
"Felicitas, you say you love me, and yet can so torture me!" he cried.
Her glance, which had rested steadily on his face, softened. Who would have expected to see in those proud, repellent eyes the look of unspeakable tenderness which now shone in them! She took his right hand in both her own.
"When you described just now a life by your side, I suffered more than can be expressed in words," she said, with deep emotion ; "hundreds of others, perhaps, would have shut their eyes to the future and grasped present happiness, but, constituted as I am, I cannot do it. All my life through, the fear of your repentance would stand between us. At every gloomy glance, every frown upon your brow, I should think: Now the time has come when he regrets the change in his opinions, when he secretly turns from me as the cause of his ruin! I should make you miserable by this mistrust, which I could not conquer!"
"This is a terrible requital!" he said, in a low tone full of intense suffering. "But I will gladly take this wretchedness upon me! I will bear your distrust, no matter how it wounds me, without a murmur. A time must come when all will be bright between us. Felicitas, I will make you a home into which such thoughts cannot enter. Of course I shall often bring home many a gloomy look and frown—those are inevitable to my profession—but, if my Fay is there, the frowns will vanish, the gloom grow radiant with light. Can you really have the heart to crush out your own love, and make a man, on whom you might bestow the highest earthly happiness, utterly wretched?"
Felicitas had gradually approached the door; she felt that her strength of will was deserting her under his eloquent pleading, yet she must be firm for his sake.
"If you could live alone with me in absolute retirement," she said, seizing the handle of the door as though it was her last support, "I would willingly go with you. Do not think I fear the world and its judgment—its opinions are usually blind and undiscerning, but in intercourse with society I dread the foe within your own nature.   There a 'respectable origin' has great weight, and I know that you are in harmony with this belief. You have great family pride—though at this moment you will not heed it—in associating with the favored few, sooner or later the regretful thought must come that you had sacrificed much for me."
"In other words, if I desire to have you for my wife, I must either give up my present sphere of action and dwell in a wilderness, or I must seek out some blot, some unworthy deed in the past history of my family!" he exclaimed, in an irritated tone.
A sudden flush crimsoned the young girl s cheeks at the last words, and her hand involuntarily glided over the folds of her dress to feel for the sharp edges of the gray box, that she might be quite sure it was safe in its hiding-place.
The professor paced up and down the room in the most extreme agitation.
"The defiant, unyielding element in your character has already caused me much trouble," he continued, in the same tone, stopping before Felicitas: "it attracts and yet angers me. At this very moment when, with stern consistency you trample my love under foot and condemn yourself to so useless a sacrifice, I feel a sort of hatred, a fierce indignation—I would fain crush it. I see that I cannot advance another step with you at present—but give you up! The thought does not enter my mind! Your assurance that you love me has the weight of the inviolable vow—you will never be faithless to me, Felicitas?"
"No," she answered, quickly, and in spite of herself a ray of love flashed from her eyes.
The professor laid his hand upon her head, bent it lightly back, and gazed at her with an expression of pain, anger, and suffering, all strangely blended. He shook his head as her lashes drooped and her lips closed firmly beneath the searching look—then he sighed heavily.
"Well, go!" he said sadly. "I consent to a temporary separation, but only on condition that I can see you often, wherever you may be, and that a constant correspondence shall be maintained between us."
She reproached herself for her weakness in extending, her hand to him in assent, but she could not deprive him of this consolation. He turned hastily away, and she went out into the corridor.
CHAPTER XXVI.
OUTSIDE, in her unutterable agony, she involuntarily stretched her arms toward heaven. How she had suffered during the last few moments, whose pain and bitterness far surpassed all the other griefs her young, sorely tried heart had been forced to endure.
Unconsciously she drew out of her pocket the little box—the secret it contained would instantly shatter the barrier between herself and the man she loved; it would weigh heavily in the balance against her despised origin; was the tempter again approaching her? No, Aunt Cordula, your will shall be done—although this book would be so brilliant a vindication! And he? Time will heal his sorrow, the pain of renunciation sanctifies the soul, but complicity in a crime debases and paralyzes it forever. The fatal little book should be consumed to ashes that very hour! Felicitas glanced back once more toward the room where she could hear the professor pacing ceaselessly to and fro, then she glided down the narrow stairs and noiselessly opened the painted door.
The traveler, who unsuspiciously treads upon the body of a snake and suddenly sees the terrible head of the irritated reptile reared before him, can feel no greater horror than did Felicitas at the moment she stepped into the corridor.   Five fingers clutched her left hand with an iron grasp—it was the hand in which she held the box—and close to her face glittered two greenish eyes, the gentle, Madonna-like orbs, of the councilor's widow.
At this moment the beautiful woman had entirely flung aside the bewitching charm of feminine grace and tenderness—how could those rosy fingers, which were wont to be so gracefully folded in prayer, clutch with so rude and powerful a grasp? What an expression of Satanic malice rested on the lovely face, distorting its soft, childish outlines almost beyond recognition!
"How charmingly this happens, my beautiful, proud Caroline! I meet you just at the moment you are carrying this lovely little jewel-case to a place of safety!" she cried, with a sneering laugh, clasping her other hand like a vise around the wrist of the hand the girl was struggling to release. "Be kind enough to hold this tiny traitor a little longer—I have no intention of permitting you to let it fall. Have patience an instant; I need a witness who can prove in court that I caught the thief in the very act. John! John!"
How shrill and piercing the young widow's voice, usually so expressive in its silvery tones of Christian love and mercy, now sounded as it rang through the corridor?
"I beg you, for God's sake, to let me go!" Felicitas pleaded in deadly terror, struggling violently to escape.
"Not for the world! He must see whom he placed by his side today. How sweetly it sounded! 'Her place is here!' You thought that you had gained your end, you dishonorable coquette, but I am still here."
She repeated her cry for help—it was unnecessary—the professor was already descending the stairs and reached the door just as Heinrich appeared at the other end of the corridor.
"Oh! were you up there, John ?" cried the councilor's widow. "I thought you were on the second story. But the skill of the juggler's daughter is all the more admirable, since she has managed to slip your aunt's legacy, as it were, from under your very hands."
"Are you out of your senses, Adele?" he asked, quickly leaving the last stair, from which he had watched the incomprehensible scene in the utmost astonishment.
"Not at all!" she replied, sarcastically. "Don't think me violent, cousin, because I am compelled to fill the office of a bailiff. Your friend, the young lawyer, indignantly refused me his aid to discover the person who had stolen the silver, and you yourself took this innocent creature under your protection—what could I do except act on my own account? You see these five fingers holding the casket they have just brought down from upstairs. This fact is proved—now we'll see what the magpie was carrying to her nest!"
She snatched the box with the speed of lightning from Felicitas's hand. The young girl, with a cry, tried to recover the captured secret, but the widow, laughing, fled several paces down the corridor with her prize, and raised the lid with frantic haste.
"A book! " she murmured, in a puzzled tone; the box fell on the floor.
She took the volume in both hands, opened it wide, and shook it violently—there must surely be bank-notes, deeds, or something of value concealed inside. But nothing fell out.
Meantime Felicitas had recovered from her fright. Following the lady, she earnestly entreated her to return the book; but, spite of her apparent composure, her anxiety was audible in her voice.
"Aha! do you really want it?" said the young widow, maliciously clasping the book tightly to her bosom as she turned her back upon her. "You seem altogether too anxious for me to give up my suspicions," she continued, glancing scornfully back over her shoulder at Felicitas. There must be some clew to this mystery; let us see what it is, little maid!"
She opened the book—the yellow leaves contained no bank-notes, no valuables, nothing but words, tender, delicately written words, but had a dagger suddenly been aimed at the young widow's breast from the pages of the ugly little volume, she could not have been more terrified, more utterly bereft of composure, than by her momentary glimpse of the writing on one of the pages she had hurriedly turned. The rosy face blanched to her very lips—instinctively she covered her eyes with her hand, and her figure swayed for an instant, as though on the verge of fainting.
But she had constantly practiced self-control before the eyes of others, in order to be surrounded by the halo of piety. She had learned to raise her eyes devoutly to heaven, while her heart was swelling with wrath and malice; she could listen with an air of profound interest to a sermon, while her mind was dwelling on a charming new toilet; she often spoke, with a flush of righteous indignation mantling her cheeks, of the sinful ways of the world and the unpardonable neglect of the Bible, while she secretly read the most questionable French novels.
This incredible flexibility and elasticity of external manner had always come to her aid in critical situations and, even now, only a few seconds elapsed before she regained her composure. She closed the book with an admirably successful expression of disappointment resting on her pale lips.
"It really is mere wretched trash!" she said to the professor, while, apparently unconsciously, slipping the book into her pocket. "It was certainly very silly in you, Caroline, to make such an outcry about such nonsense!"
"Did she make the outcry?" asked the professor, hastily advancing — he was trembling with excitement. "I thought you called upon me to aid you in convicting this young girl of stealing the silver. Will you have the kindness to give me your reason, here on the spot, for your shameful accusation?"
"You see I am unable at the moment—"
"At the moment?" he vehemently interrupted. "You must recall your insulting charge instantly, and, in my presence and Heinrich's, make the most ample apology to her."
"Most gladly, dear John. It is a Christian's duty to own and beg forgiveness for an error. My dear Caroline, pray pardon me, I have wronged you."
"And now give back the book," said the professor, in a curt, inflexible tone.
"The book?" she asked, with all her former childish artlessness.   "Why, my dear John, it doesn't belong to Caroline."
"Who told you so?"
"I saw Aunt Cordula's name written in it. If any one has a right to it, it is you, as the heir of her library and furniture. But it has not the slightest real value; it seems to be full of copies of old poetry. What would you do with such sentimental stuff? But I like these old yellow books—spite of their soiled, shabby appearance, I am fond of collecting them. Please give it to me."
"Perhaps I will, after I have seen it," he replied, coldly, shrugging his shoulders, as he held out his hand for the volume.
"But it would have far more value to me, if you would give it to me before looking at it," she replied, in sweet, coaxing tones. "Must I believe that you want to learn the exact market-value of the first and only gift I ever asked you to make me?"
The veins on the professor's forehead swelled angrily.
"I assure you that your opinion of my conduct is a matter of entire indifference to me," he answered, sharply. "I demand the return of the book. Your behavior seems extremely suspicious. Copies of sentimental old poetry could not possibly make a woman of the world, like yourself, turn pale with terror."
As he spoke he stepped in front of her—her restless glance, which had measured with the speed of lightning the whole length of the corridor, and a hasty movement, unmistakably betrayed her intention to take to flight. The professor grasped her hand and stopped her.
Felicitas was almost frantic at the thought that he would attain his end. It was terrible to have the book in the possession of this arch hypocrite, but she could not help admitting that it would be as safe there as if it were in her own hands, and would undoubtedly be destroyed that very day. So she took her place by the young widow's side, to aid her flight it' possible.
"I beg you, Herr Professor, to let the lady have the book!" she said, as gravely and quietly as was possible at so critical a moment. "By reading it, she will convince herself that she was too hasty in supposing the little box contained any article of value."
The first suspicious glance she had ever seen in the steel-gray eyes rested upon her face—it seemed like the thrust of a knife. Flushing scarlet, she lowered her eyes.
"So you, too, come with an entreaty," he said, in a sharp, sarcastic tone. "Then there is certainly something more in question than mere sentimental trash. I remember that my cousin said you looked very anxious, and I confess I noticed the same thing. Now I ask you, on your conscience, what does the volume contain?"
It was a fearful moment. Felicitas struggled to control herself, and opened her lips—but they uttered no sound.
"Do not trouble yourself!" he said, with an ironical smile, tightening his hold on his cousin's hand as she tried to gradually slip from his grasp. "You can be pitiless, stern, and terribly frank, but you cannot lie. So the book contains no extracts of poetry, but truth, facts, and facts which I am resolved to know at any cost. Will you at last have the kindness, Adele, to give me what, as you have yourself said, is my own property ?"
"Do what you will to me, you shall never have it!" cried the councilor's widow, with the energy of despair, throwing aside in her terror the character of a pleading child. She made several desperate efforts to release herself and at last succeeded, and fled down the long corridor like a hunted creature. But at the end stood Heinrich, with his arms spread out like a wall, completely filling the narrow passage. She started back. "Out of my way, insolent fellow!" she cried, stamping her foot in her frantic rage.
"Directly, most gracious lady," he replied, quietly and respectfully, without altering his position in the least— "just give up the little book, and I'll move aside instantly."
"Heinrich!" cried Felicitas, rushing to him and shaking his arm violently in her despair.
"Oh, that's no use, Fay!" he said, smiling, as his old bones remained perfectly unmoved by the young girl's efforts.   "I'm not so dull as you suppose.    You might easily commit some folly out of pure good nature, and I won't have it."
"Let the lady pass, Heinrich! " said the professor gravely.    "But I now tell you, Adele, that I shall instantly adopt the only means in my power to recover my property.    No one can prevent me from supposing that the book contains important information concerning my aunt's estate—possibly allusions to property as yet undiscovered—" "No, no!" exclaimed Felicitas, interrupting him.
"It is my affair to think what I please," he answered, m a tone of inexorable sternness, " and both you and Heinrich will, if necessary, bear witness for me in a court of justice, that this lady has purloined a considerable portion of my inheritance."
The young widow started as though she had been stung by an adder. Casting one fierce glance at her inflexible tormentor, she yielded to the unreasoning rage under whose influence she tore handkerchiefs to tatters and shattered cups. Snatching the book from her pocket, she flung it at his feet with a shrill,jeering laugh.
"There, take it, you obstinate fool," she cried, trembling convulsively from head to foot. "I congratulate you on the delightful acquisition. Bear the disgrace, which it will disclose with what dignity you can summon!"
She darted through the corridor and down the stairs, then they heard the door of her room close with a heavy crash behind her.
The professor looked after her with an expression of mingled amusement and contempt; then he examined for a moment the coarse covers of the book, while Felicitas's eyes rested with the most intense anxiety on the fingers thrust between the pages, which might open them at any moment. His features expressed anxious thought and painful suspense—the widow's last words had not surprised him, he had evidently expected some such end of the unpleasant scene; the only point to be ascertained was the form in which the presaged disgrace would confront him. Suddenly he looked up into Felicitas's pleading brown eyes—what power they possessed over the stern man! It seemed as though a gentle hand passed over the frowning brow, smoothing its wrinkles, while a half smile hovered about his lips.
"Now I will call you to account!" he began. "You have deceived me most shamefully. While you faced me upstairs with an air of integrity, to whose truth I would have sworn, you had one of the secrets of the Hellwig family in your pocket. What am I to think of you, Fay? You can atone for this abominable duplicity only by answering my questions without reserve."
"I will tell you everything I can; but then I beg you — oh, I beg you most fervently, give me the book!"
"Is this really my proud, defiant, unyielding Fay, who entreats so sweetly?"
At these words from the professor, Heinrich wisely made a noiseless retreat, but sat down in positive terror on the first flight of stairs, and clasped his gray head in his hands, as if to make sure, after what he had just heard, that it actually remained in its place.
"So you went up today to my aunt's rooms to get this book?" asked the professor.
"Yes."
"By what way? I found all the doors locked."  "I went over the roofs," she answered, reluctantly.
"That is, through the attic rooms?"
Felicitas blushed. Though she was now relieved from all suspicion of any evil design, her manner of entering seemed clandestine.
"No," she said, in much confusion; "there is no way through the upper rooms. I climbed out of the garret window opposite and came across the roofs."
"In this frightful storm?" he exclaimed, turning pale. "Felicitas, your determination is terrible!"
"I had no choice!" she replied, smiling bitterly.
"And why were you so resolved to obtain possession of the book?"
"I considered it a sacred legacy from Aunt Cordula. She once told me that the little gray box—at that time I was ignorant of its contents—must die before her. Death came upon her unexpectedly, and I felt sure it had not been destroyed. Besides, I knew it lay hidden in the secret compartment which contained the silver, and I could not point out that place of concealment without letting the book fall into the wrong hands."
"Poor child, how anxious you must have been! And all this heroic self-denial has been vain; the book has nevertheless fallen into the 'wrong hands.'"
"Oh, no, you will give it back to me!" she pleaded, in deadly terror.
"Felicitas, he said, in a grave, commanding tone," you will now answer me two questions truthfully. Do you know the precise contents of this volume?"
"Partly—since today."
"And do they compromise your old friend?"
The young girl was silent. If she replied in the affirmative, perhaps he would return the book and permit it to be consigned to destruction; but then she would sully Aunt Cordula's memory, and confirm the horrible rumors of her supposed guilt.
"It is unworthy of you to seek evasions, no matter how good and pure your motive may be!" he said, sternly, interrupting the momentary pause. "Say simply, yes or no."
"No!"
"I knew it," he murmured. "Now be reasonable, and submit to what is inevitable. I shall read the book."
Felicitas turned pale as death, but she made no more entreaties.
"Do so, if you can make it compatible with your honor!" she gasped. "You are seizing upon a secret never meant for you to know. At the moment you open that book you make the most terrible, the most prolonged sacrifices throughout a woman's life utterly valueless!"
"You fight bravely, Felicitas," he answered, quietly, "and had it not been for the last words uttered by that lady—" he nodded in the direction in which the councilor's widow had vanished—"in her fury, I would give the miserable secret back to you unseen. But I must and will know the disgrace that rests upon my name, and if the lonely occupant of the rooms under the roof was strong enough to guard it from the eyes of strangers all her life, I shall doubtless find fortitude to endure it. I am doubly constrained to probe the matter thoroughly. The branch of the Hellwig family on the Rhine is evidently in possession of the secret, possibly has some share in a rascality—though you keep silence and cast down your eyes, I see distinctly in your face that my supposition is correct. My cousin undoubtedly knew of this disgrace, and was merely startled to suddenly find it written in plain characters before her eyes. I shall have a reckoning with these hypocrites! Console yourself, Fay," he continued, gently, tenderly stroking the hair of the girl who stood before him in mute despair, "I can take no different course, though my reward were the assurance that I might instantly call you mine. I should still be forced to say 'No!' "
"I can never console myself," she cried, giving way to her grief, "for my carelessness has brought misery upon you."
"You will take comfort," he answered, earnestly, "when you see that your love will enable me to conquer every trial fate may have for me in my future life."
He pressed her little icy hand and went to his room. But Felicitas leaned her burning brow against the window and looked down into the court-yard, where rushing torrents of rain were pouring as violently as if they were striving to wash away the stains of the murdered Adrian von Hirschsprung's blood from the pavement, and with it the blot upon the name of Hellwig.
CHAPTER XXVIL
AN hour after the professor entered his mother's sitting-room. His face was a shade paler than usual; but his expression and bearing showed more plainly than ever the manly decision and moral strength so conspicuous in his whole appearance.
Frau Hellwig was sitting behind her asclepias plant, busily engaged in knitting. Row after row grew under those plump white hands, like the rounds of a ladder leading straight to heaven—for it was a missionary stocking on which she was working.
The professor laid a small book on the table before her.
"I have a very serious matter to discuss with you, mother," he said, "but first let me beg you to glance over these pages."
She laid down the stocking in astonishment, put on her spectacles, and took the book.
"Why, these are old Cordula'sscrawlings!" she said, crossly, but began to read.
The professor put his left hand behind his back and, stroking his beard with the right, paced silently up and down the room.
"I can't see what interest this childish love-affair with the shoemaker's son has for me!" she cried peevishly, after reading two pages. "What put it into your head to bring me the old rubbish? It poisons the whole room with its mouldy smell.
"Pray read on, mother!" said the professor, impatiently, "you will soon forget the odor of mold in far worse things the volume contains."
She opened it again with visible reluctance, and glanced over several pages. Gradually the stony face became animated, the rustling leaves were turned more swiftly. A faint flush tinged her white face, suddenly deepening on the forehead to a vivid scarlet. Strangely enough, however, the lady felt neither alarm nor horror—she showed only intense astonishment, soon blended with unutterable contempt, as she let the book fall into her lap.
"These are strange things, indeed! Who would ever have thought it! The honorable, highly-esteemed Hellwigs! " she cried, striking her hands together—hate, triumph, and gratified malice all strove for mastery in her voice, "So the money-bags of which my mother-in-law was so proud, were stolen property ! Ha! ha! she rustled in silk and velvet, gave balls where champagne flowed in rivers, and her flatterers called her a beautiful and clever woman. And I had to attend these noisy guests! No one, in the presence of the frivolous woman, heeded the poor young relative, who, in her virtue and her fear of the Lord, stood far above all those miserable revelers. How often I had clinched my teeth, and prayed in my heart to God to punish this wicked noting, according to his justice. He had already condemned them. Oh, how marvelous are His ways! It was stolen money they wasted—their souls are doubly lost!"
The professor stood motionless in the middle of the room. This method of regarding the matter was so totally unexpected, that he remained silent a moment in bewilderment.
"I do not understand how you can hold my grandmother responsible for using this embezzled money, mother," he said, indignantly, after a short pause. "She was ignorant of the secret. According to that idea, our souls must be lost, too, since we have continued to spend the interest of this sum until now. But, as this is your opinion, you will agree with me that we must get rid of this sinful, stolen gold as soon as possible, and return every farthing to its owners."
Hitherto, in her unutterable amazement, Frau Hell-wig had remained sitting with folded hands; now pressing them on the arms of her chair, she stood erect, suddenly.
"Return?" she repeated, as though doubting whether she had heard correctly. "To whom?"
"Why, to the Hirschsprung heirs, of course, if any are still living."
"What, pay so large a sum to the first strolling Vagabond, who may perhaps come forward? Forty thousand thalers remained in the Hellwig family, after—"
"Yes, after Paul Hellwig, the man of honor, the true and righteous champion of the Lord, one of the elect, had seized twenty thousand thalers!" the professor interrupted, with trembling indignation. "Mother, you condemn my grandmother's soul to eternal punishment, because she ignorantly used stolen money. What does he deserve, who, with fiendish deliberation, and cool calculation, steals a fortune? "
"Yes, he yielded a moment to temptation," she replied, without losing the least iota of composure. "He was a thoughtless young man, then, who had not found the right path. Satan always chooses the best and noblest souls to draw from the kingdom of God— but he has made his way out of the mire of sin, and it is written: 'There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.' He battles unweariedly for our holy faith. The money has been purified, sanctified in his hands, for he uses it for objects pleasing to God."
"We Protestants have our Jesuits too, I see!" cried the professor with a laugh of bitter scorn.
"It is precisely the same with what fell into our possession," continued Frau Hellwig, immovably. Look about you! God's hand rests visibly upon all we do! If the crime still clung to the money it could not bring forth such good fruits. We, you and I, and my son, have transformed what was once a sin into a blessing, through our zeal in the service of the Lord, and our godly lives."
"Pray do not include me, mother," he interrupted, deeply incensed by this shocking argument. Raising his hand to his forehead, he pressed it as though enduring intolerable pain.
The great lady darted a venomous glance at her son as he uttered this protest but nevertheless continued in a raised voice: "We are not authorized to throw away the means we devote to a sacred cause, perhaps to be wasted in worldly pleasures. This is my principal reason for opposing, with all my strength, any revival of this forgotten tale—the second is that, by doing so you will bring disgrace on one of your ancestors."
"He brought disgrace on himself and all his descendants," said the professor, harshly. "But we can at least save our own honor by refusing to play the part of hypocrites."
Frau Hellwig left her place and approached her son with all her lofty superiority of bearing.
"Well—we will suppose that I yield to your view of this unpleasant matter," she said, coldly. "Suppose we should take these forty thousand thalers—whose loss, by the way, would reduce us to a very moderate income, but no matter, we will consider that—suppose, I say, we should take this money and return every farthing of it, What if the rejoicing heirs should then demand the accrued interest and compound interest—what then?"
"I do not think they would be entitled to do that—but, if it should be so, you must remember the words, 'The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children.'"
"I am not a Hellwig—do not forget that, my son!" she interrupted.  "I brought to this house an honored, stainless name—my father was a court councilor. The shame does not touch me, nor am I inclined to make a pecuniary sacrifice for the sake of washing away the blot. Do you think it my duty to starve in my old age on account of the sins of others?"
"Starve, while you have a son who is able to provide for you? Mother, do you not think my profession will enable me to give you a comfortable, even a luxurious support?"
"I thank you, my son!" she answered, in an icy tone. "But I prefer to live upon my own income, and remain my own mistress. I abhor dependence. Since your father's death, I have known no will save the Lord's, and my own—and so it must always be. But we will not quarrel about nothing! I assure you that I believe the whole matter to be a mere crazy delusion of that old creature who lived under the roof. Nothing in the world will compel me to believe it a true account of an event that really occurred."
At this moment the door was noiselessly opened, and the councilor's widow entered. The beautiful woman had been weeping, and this time not like a Mater Dolorosa—the traces of tears were plainly visible on her reddened eye-lids, and dark spots burned on the roseate velvet of her cheeks. Passion had rudely shaken her soul—though the lady had done everything in her power to transform its ravages into an image of innocent suffering. To hide her disordered hair, she had wound about her head a transparent white tulle scarf; the lovely face peeping from the mist-like fabric, from beneath which one or two fair locks stole, received a touch of ideal grace. She had evidently attempted to make the tulle supply the place of the girlish delicacy and childlike artlessness, which had so long surrounded her like a halo.
She saw the fatal book lying on the table, and started. Slowly, like a penitent, she approached the professor, and, with her face averted as if in shame, held out her hand.    He did not take it.
"Forgive me, John," she pleaded. "I cannot account for my anger, even to myself. I, who am usually so calm and quiet, how could I be so excited! But it is all the fault of that miserable business! Just think, John, how that horrible book compromises my dear papa, and, besides, I so longed to save you at any cost from so humiliating a discovery. I cannot help thinking that Caroline searched out this horrid story just to play us all an ill turn before her departure—"
"Hold your slanderous tongue!" he cried, threateningly, with such sudden violence, that she was silent in terror. "But I will forgive you," he added, after a pause, struggling to control himself, "on one condition."
She looked at him inquiringly.
"That you tell me, without any reserve, in what way you learned the secret."
She remained silent a moment, then began in a sorrowful tone. "During papa's last illness which, as you know, seemed likely to prove fatal, he asked me to bring him from his secretary, various papers, which I was obliged to destroy before his eyes.
"They were Hirschsprung documents—he had probably preserved them as curiosities. Whether the apparent approach of death made him more communicative, or whether he felt the necessity of speaking of this incident to someone, I do not know—but, he confided the secret to me—"
"And gave you a certain bracelet, did he not?" asked the professor, angrily.
Adele silently nodded, looking up at him with a helpless, beseeching gaze.
"After this statement, do you still believe the whole story to be the wanderings of a disordered brain?" asked the professor, turning with a cold smile to his mother.
"I only know that this person's folly and senselessness surpass everything I have ever experienced," she answered, trembling with anger, as she pointed to the young widow. "The demon of vanity, which gives her no peace, led her to put on the strange bracelet, that no one could fail to admire, in order to have the beautiful white arm seen also."
The young widow suddenly forgot her role of suffering penitent, and cast a fiery glance at her aunt, who thus pitilessly exposed one of the weakest points in her character.
"I will not discuss, Adele, how the wearing of stolen jewelry can possibly harmonize with the purity and innocence of your soul, which you so strongly emphasize on all occasions," said the professor, with apparent calmness, though his voice sounded like the low muttering of an approaching tempest. "It is your place to decide who is the greater sinner, the poor mother who steals bread for her starving children, or the rich woman reveling in luxury, who receives stolen goods. But that you could have the effrontery to place this stolen ornament in the pure hand of the young girl who had just saved the life of your child—you said explicitly that the bracelet was very dear to you, but you would joyfully sacrifice your most cherished possession for Anna's sake—that you also dared, by right of your stainless descent, to sneer at that girl's origin, claiming for yourself all the virtues derived from a spotless lineage, and thrusting her into a sphere of degradation, while all the time you were aware of your father's deed—was so outrageous an act of infamy, that it cannot be too severely condemned."
The young widow tottered, her eyes closed, and she grasped with an unsteady hand at the table-cloth as if for support.
"You are not wholly wrong, John," said Frau Hellwig, shaking the tottering figure rudely by the arm—all fainting women were detestable to her—" you are not wholly wrong, but your last sentence was rather too strong. Adele was certainly extremely foolish, but you must not forget what is due to her position. The comparison to the poor woman was—hardly sensible. There is a marked difference between finding property that has no owner, and intentionally stealing the bread of others. But this is another of the abominable new-fangled ideas of making comparisons between common people and those of high position. I am greatly surprised to hear such words fromyour lips. And it is also unwarrantable to compare a girl like Caroline, to a woman of position—a low creature like her."
"Mother, I told you this afternoon, in the garden, that I would no longer tolerate these unpardonable attacks upon Felicitas!" cried the professor, while the veins upon his forehead swelled with anger.
"Oho, show me a little more respect, I beg! You are standing in your mother's presence !" she said, authoritatively, extending her hand toward him with a repellent gesture, while an annihilating glance darted from her cold gray eyes. "You play the part of knight-errant to this wandering princess admirably; there will soon be nothing for me to do save to lay my homage at her feet."
"You will surely treat her with respect, mother, he replied, with great composure, in answer to this biting taunt, and his eyes rested steadily and searchingly upon her face. "You will surely not refuse her your respect and esteem, for—she will one day become my wife."
And—the old house actually remained standing after this unprecedented statement! The earth did not open to swallow up the little town and this most misguided scion of the Hellwigs, as the lady, in the first horrified moment of astonishment, really expected. The professor himself stood there, calm and immovable, the image of a man who has formed his own resolve, and on whom women's tears, hysterics, and outbreaks of anger would produce no more impression than waves beating against a rock-bound coast.
Frau Hellwig, fairly speechless, staggered back, but the councilor's widow roused herself from her half-fainting condition, and burst into a peal of hysterical laughter. The transfiguring tulle fell from her head down on her neck, and her tangled locks, amid which the half-withered crimson rose still clung, twined like serpents about her flushed brow.                                   
"This is the consequence of your far-famed wisdom, aunt!" she cried, shrilly. "Now it is my turn to triumph! Who begged you to marry off this girl, at any hazard, before John came home? I had a foreboding, at my first glimpse of this person, that she would bring misfortune on us all! Now take the burden of this disgrace, to which you were resolutely blind. I shall go at once to Bonn, to tell the professors' wives what sort of a girl is soon to enter their exclusive circle."
She rushed out of the room.
Meantime, Frau Hellwig had recovered from heir stupor of amazement, and armed herself with all her innate pride and dignity.
"I evidently misunderstood you just now, John," she said, with apparent calmness.
"If you think so, I will repeat my remark," he replied, in a cold, unyielding tone. "I intend to marry Felicitas d'Orlowska."
"Do you dare to persist in this insane purpose?"
"Instead of answering you, I will ask—would you now bestow your blessing on my marriage with Adele?"
"Assuredly. She is a suitable match—I have no wish more earnest."
The professor flushed crimson and clinched his teeth to repress the torrent of angry words that rose to his lips.
"By that declaration you have lost the last remnant of authority to decide any important question in my life," he said, with forced composure. "So you do not consider that this woman, so utterly corrupt in her moral nature, this pitiful hypocrite, would poison my whole existence. You could sit quietly here in your luxurious home, and be perfectly satisfied to say of your absent son: ‘He made a suitable match.' In answer to this boundless selfishness, I declare that I mean to secure happiness, and I can find it only with the poor, despised orphan, whom we have treated so cruelly."
Frau Hellwig burst into a harsh, sneering laugh.
"I still refrain from inflicting the worst punishment upon you!" she cried, with quivering lips. "But do not forget the old proverb, 'A father's blessing builds the child's house, but a mother's curse tears it down.'"
"Do you assert that your blessing would efface Adele's faults of character? Nor can a curse produce any effect if it falls on an innocent head. You will not utter it, mother! God will not receive it—it will recoil upon yourself and make your old age lonely and loveless."
"What care I for that? I know but two things, they are my guides—honor and shame! You must honor my will, and by the authority of this duty you will recall your foolish words."
"Never, you may be sure of that, mother!" cried her son and left the room, while she stood like a statue with outstretched arms. Did those distorted, livid lips, utter the curse? No sound reached the hall—if it was spoken, it died noiselessly away—the God of love does not give so terrible a weapon to the wicked and revengeful.
The shadows of approaching night were already gathering in the large square court-yard. The wind had fallen, but dark, torn clouds were still sweeping across the sky, like angry warriors anxious to combine their forces for another assault.
Up in the second story, doors were banged, trunks pushed about, and clumsy and nimble feet ran to and fro—the occupants were packing for an eternal departure. "So this is the end of the forget-me-nots!'' muttered Heinrich, greatly delighted, as he carried a big trunk into the passage.
How quiet and calm, in contrast to all the noise and haste in the front mansion, was the pale young face seen at the bow-window opening into the court-yard. A kitchen lamp was burning on the table, and beside it stood the little trunk containing the clothes Felicitas had worn when a child. Frau Hellwig, still holding the missionary stocking in her hand, had given orders an hour before to have the girl's "rubbish" carried to her, "that she might have no reason for staying another night in the house." Felicitas was just looking at the little seal with the Hirschsprung crest by the light of the lamp, when the professor's pale face appeared at the bow-window.
"Come, Felicitas! You shall not stay an instant longer in this house of crime and selfishness," he said, in great excitement. "Leave those things here—Heinrich will take them all to you tomorrow."
She threw her shawl around her and met him in the hall. Taking her hand firmly in his he led her through the streets until he rang the bell at the young lawyer's door.
"I bring you a ward," he said to the old lady, who received the couple in her cosy, well-lighted room, kindly, but with evident surprise. Taking her hand, he placed Felicitas's in it. "I confide her to you, my friend," he said, significantly; "guard and protect my Felicitas like a daughter—till I ask you to give her back to me again."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE young girl had merely walked through a few streets and crossed two thresholds, yet what a transformation these few steps had effected both in her outward and inward life. The massive stone walls of the old mansion lay behind her, and with it she had cast off the burden of unkind treatment. Wherever she looked, all was now brightness and sunshine—there was not the slightest trace of the gloomy bigotry, which brooded like some dark bird of prey over the Hellwig mansion, trying to rend with its sharp talons every innocent human soul. Free, healthful views of existence, a keen interest in everything noble and beautiful the world possesses, and a happy, cheerful domestic life formed the atmosphere of her present home. Felicitas found herself in her element. There was both sweetness and sorrow in again hearing all the pet names Aunt Cordula had given her—for she had instantly become the darling of the two old people, the master and mistress of the house.
Such was the outward change in her life—the transformation within, she herself regarded with a vague, sweet sense of confusion. In obedience to the professor's summons that evening, she had left her few possessions without a word; in the hall she had silently placed her little hand in his and gone with him willingly, without knowing whither. If he had led her on through the dark streets, out of the gate of the town—she would have journeyed with him over the whole world without a word of doubt or suspicion. She was a strange creature, who, with all her glowing imagination, her lofty enthusiasm, inflexibly required a firm foundation of principle for all her acts. The professor's ardent professions of love and impassioned entreaties had torn her heart, but had been powerless to shake her firm resolve or effect any change of feeling—other words must be uttered to win her, and these he had unintentionally spoken. In refusing to give her the book, he had said, "I can take no different course; though my reward were the assurance that I might instantly call you mine, I should still be forced to say 'No.'" Spite of the terrible anxiety she was then suffering, her heart had throbbed exultingly—the strength of his manly resolution and the vigor with which he asserted it, at any cost to himself, solved every doubt and inspired her with that confidence in him without which life by his side would have been impossible for her.
The professor came daily to her new home. He was graver and more reserved than ever—for heavy burdens were pressing upon him. His residence in his mother's house had become unendurable. The mental excitement she had endured had probably affected her iron nerves— she became ill, and could not leave her bed. She steadily refused to see her son—Dr. Boehm attended her—but the professor was obliged to remain in X—. Meantime he had told his friend, as curator of the presumptive Hirschsprung heirs, the family secret, and informed him of his fixed determination to atone for the wrong. All the objections his friend advanced, to induce him at least to modify the extent of the reparation, were baffled by the professor's query whether he considered the money honestly obtained—to which even the young advocate could not answer "yes." Still the lawyer shared Frau Hellwig's opinion that it was "a fuss about nothing," though for a different reason—he did not believe in the existence of any scions of the Hirschsprung family. But, in his opinion, the devout relative on the Rhine, the highly-esteemed Paul Hellwig, ought not to be spared a strong nervous shock, so the zealous champion of the Lord was summoned to restore the stolen twenty thousand thalers. The pious man quietly replied, with his usual sanctimoniousness, that he had assuredly received that sum from his uncle in payment of an old debt due to his father from the principal branch of the Hellwig family. Where his uncle obtained the money was a matter of entire indifference to him, and did not cause him the slightest uneasiness—it was no affair of his. The money was now in the best possible hands; he did not consider himself the owner of the property, but simply its steward, under the direction of the "Lord." He should, for this reason, defend the money by every means in his power, and looked forward to a law-suit without the least anxiety.
Nathanael wrote in a very similar strain. It was a matter of indifference to him what crime might have been committed by an ancestor who had long since moldered into dust—he did not consider it his duty to whitewash the characters of the other, and certainly should not give up one penny of his heritage. He, too, he wrote, looked forward with the utmost composure to a law-suit, and already cherished pleasurable anticipations of the moment when the heirs presumptive would have to pay the costs, and his "over-scrupulous" brother find disgrace brought on his once-honored name.
"Then there is no course for me to pursue," said the professor, smiling bitterly, as he flung these written testimonials of the nice sense of honor that characterized, the Hellwigs upon the table, "except to sacrifice every penny I have inherited or saved, if I do not wish to be a hypocrite and accomplice in an evil deed."
Thus the end of the vacation had gradually arrived. Frau Hellwig had recovered sufficiently to leave her bed, but had resolutely declared that she would not see her son before his departure, except on condition that he, would drop the whole "crazy" Hirschsprung business; and give up his intention of marrying Felicitas. Of course this separated the mother and son forever.
Felicitas was in a mood difficult to describe. Ever since her arrival in her new home she had sat down every afternoon, at the usual hour, with a throbbing heart, and cast stolen glances out of the window until the well-knit manly figure, with its self-poised bearing turned the corner. Then, it required all her self-control not to run to meet him. He came nearer and nearer, neither looking to the right nor to the left, not even noticing the acquaintances he met; his eyes were fixed upon the window where Felicitas's head was apparently bent over her sewing.  At last the moment came when she could venture to look up—their eyes met—ah, life held a wealth of bliss of which the girl's young heart had hitherto not even dreamed! The professor never spoke of his love, Felicitas might have thought the events which had recently occurred had driven it out of his mind had it not been for his eyes; but those steely gray eyes perpetually followed her as she moved about the room engaged in household duties; they sparkled when she entered or when, lifting her head from her work, she turned her face fully toward him.   She knew that she was still "his Fay," who "was to wait for him at home and think of him."    And with this feeling she received his afternoon visits. The girl who had once possessed such an iron will, whose glance had been so full of hate, and whose manner had expressed such cold reserve, did not even suspect what a witchery now surrounded her, since all the harsh traits in her character had melted in the sweet humility of love.
And tomorrow the time would come when she might sit at the window and wait for him in vain. In the hour of the afternoon, for whose coming she always longed so eagerly, he would be far, far away from her—throngs of strange faces would separate him from his Fay—perhaps a whole long year might elapse ere she should see him again. What a desolate time was coming! Felicitas beheld a dreary void, to which she could no longer accustom herself—she was drifting rudderless.
On the day before the professor's departure, while Felicitas and the other members of the household were at dinner, the maid-servant brought in a card which she handed to the young lawyer. A sudden flush of surprise crimsoned his face, and throwing the card on the table he left the room. The shining bit of white pasteboard bore the words:  "Baron Lutz von Hirschsprung, of Kiel." A man's voice was heard in the hall outside speaking most excellent German in the refined tones that are a token of gentle breeding—then the two gentlemen went upstairs to the lawyer's study.
While the councilor and his wife were engaged in an eager conversation about this heir, who seemed to have come from No-Man's Land, Felicitas sat silent in the most intense agitation. The poor player's child, who, bereft of every family tie, had hitherto lived alone among strangers, suddenly found herself under the same roof with an unknown kinsman. Was it her grandfather or her mother's brother? Had that deep, calm voice, whose tones had made every nerve in her body quiver, once pronounced a curse upon the recreant daughter of the Hirschsprungs?
The stranger bore the name of the ancestor who had left X----- so many years ago. This name, which seemed almost antediluvian, was displayed with much aristocratic ostentation on the little card. We like to exhume ancient appellations from the dust and rubbish of bygone centuries; they involuntarily summon up before our eyes visions of knightly figures in clanking armor, and betoken aristocratic blood, though they suit oddly enough our modern race of pygmies clad in black dress coats. This branch of the Hirschprungs evidently set a higher value on its noble ancestors—it was almost certain that the juggler's daughter could not claim kinship without rebuke. Every drop of blood in Felicitas's veins seethed wildly at the thought of a repulse; she closed her lips more firmly, as if to repress any hasty word that might escape them in her excitement. Yet she could not control her ardent desire to see the man, and she was to have an opportunity.
Soon after the stranger's arrival, the young lawyer had sent for the professor, and the interview between the three gentlemen lasted more than two hours. During this time of anxious expectation, Felicitas often heard her lover pacing to and fro overhead with a calm, measured tread. She saw in imagination the man of science passing his slender, well-formed hand over his beard, and quietly offering the aristocratic money and lands to efface the stain on the honor of his name.
Afterward the young lawyer sent to ask his mother to have coffee made, as when they had concluded their business he would bring his guest into her sitting-room. Felicitas attended to the matter, and while arranging the coffee-service in the kitchen, she heard the gentlemen coming down-stairs. Her courage almost deserted her as she saw the stranger, talking to the professor, pass slowly through the hall. He was extremely tall and very slender; his bearing and gestures evinced the finished man of the world, but also the thorough aristocrat, perfectly conscious of his superior position. He certainly could not be her grandfather, the face, with its delicately chiseled features, was too young for that. At the moment a pleasant smile rested upon his thin lips as he bent toward the professor, but the handsome, clearly cut profile, with its pale, sallow complexion, was evidently more habituated to express imperious command than kindness.
Felicitas smoothed her hair with trembling fingers and entered the room, into which the coffee had already been carried by the servant. The whole party were standing in one of the deep window-niches, and the girl's noiseless entrance was unnoticed. She quietly filled the cups, and, placing one on a tray, offered it with a few courteous words to the stranger—he turned hurriedly at the sound of her voice, but staggered back as though he had received a blow, while his face blanched to a death-like pallor, and his startled eyes wandered over the girlish figure before him. "Meta!" he gasped.
"Meta von Hirschsprung was my mother," she replied, in her low, musical voice, with apparent composure, though she placed the salver on a table because the cups began to rattle perceptibly.
"Your mother? I did not know that she had left a child," he murmured, trying to control his agitation.
Felicitas smiled scornfully—partly no doubt at her own weakness, which, spite of her firm resolutions, had betrayed her into confessing to this man the secret of her origin. There had not been the faintest shade of love or sorrowful sympathy in his tones, nothing save startled surprise, and she instantly felt that she had exposed herself to a series of humiliations, which she must now endure in the presence of the astonished group, who, in silent amazement, were awaiting the further development of the strange scene.
Meanwhile Baron von Hirschsprung's surprise had passed away, but only to give place to the most painful embarrassment. He covered his eyes with his hand and said in a low, faltering voice: "Ah, yes, it was in this very little town of X------that fate overtook the unfortunate woman—a fate terrible, indeed, yet just."
It seemed as if, in uttering the last words, he had regained complete mastery over himself. Drawing himself up to his full height, he said with the well-bred ease of a thorough man of the world, addressing the other members of the group: "Pardon me, if a momentary surprise made me forget the presence of others! But I had supposed a drama formerly enacted in our family, ended and buried forever, and suddenly found myself confronted here with an afterpiece! Then you are a daughter of the juggler D'Orlowska?" he added, taming to Felicitas, and evidently trying to infuse a trace of kindness into his tone.
"Yes," she answered, curtly, facing him with as haughty as his own.    At this moment the semblance between the two was very striking, the predominant expression of those noble features, though it perhaps rested on a widely different foundation.
"Your father then left you in X------after his wife's death?   You have grown up here?" he went on, unmistakably impressed by the young girl's appearance.
"Yes."
"The man did not have much time to provide for you —if my memory serves me, he died of nervous fever in Hamburg eight or nine years ago."
"This is my first information that he is no longer living," replied Felicitas, trembling, while the corners of her mouth quivered and tears sprung to her burning eyes. Yet, in spite of the shock of these tidings she had a certain feeling of satisfaction—Frau Hellwig had so often said that her father was wandering about the world, without caring what it cost other people for his child's support.
"Ah, I regret exceedingly that I have been the person to bring such sad news!" cried Baron von Hirschsprung, shaking his head mournfully. "With him you have lost the only relative you had, after your mother's death. There was a time when I investigated this man's early life—he was left alone in the world when very young. It is very sorrowful, but you no longer possess any kindred."
"And may we be permitted to ask, sir, in what relation the mother of this young girl stood to your family?" cried the councilor's wife, indignant at the pitiless manner in which he excluded Felicitas from the circle of her high-born race.
A faint flush flickered over his face. Bewitching as is the blush on the cheek of innocence, it is repulsive when seen on the countenance of an arrogant man, who is evidently struggling to determine whether to conceal or acknowledge some humiliating fact.
"She was once my sister," he answered, indifferently, though he placed a marked emphasis on the word "once." "I intentionally avoided alluding to this tie," he went on more firmly, after a somewhat long pause, "because, as matters are, I shall be forced to make disclosures which may possibly make me appear unfeeling. I must impart to this young lady certain circumstances relating to her mother, which perhaps might better be suppressed. Frau d'Orlowska forever ceased to be a member of the Von Hirschsprung family at the moment she gave her hand to the Pole. In our family record there is no mention of the name of the man whom this daughter of the house married. When she crossed our threshold for the last time, my father, with his own hand, erased her name from the book—a deed infinitely harder to his aristocratic nature than if he had been compelled to affix to it the cross that indicates death. From that time the name of Meta von Hirschsprung has had no existence for us; neither friend nor servant has ever ventured to repeat it; my children do not know that they ever had an aunt—she was disinherited, cast off, dead to us long before she met with so terrible an end."
He paused a moment. During these disclosures, made in a manner so crushing, the councilor's wife had put her arms around Felicitas and drawn her, with a mother's tenderness, to her heart. And there stood the professor; he said nothing, but his eyes rested fondly on the pale face of the girl who was again made to suffer so keenly for her "idolized" mother. There was a short, painful pause—a silence that evidently expressed stern condemnation. The speaker could not escape the impression. He continued in an unsteady, faltering voice.
"Let me assure you that I find it a very painful task to be forced to wound you in this way—I appear, even to myself, in such an unchivalrous light, but good heavens! how can I help calling things by their true names? I should be glad to do something for you. In what position do you stand in this admirable household?"
"The position of my dear daughter," replied the councilor's wife for Felicitas, looking the speaker keenly in the face.
"Then you see that you have indeed a very happy lot!" he said to the young girl, at the same time bowing courteously to his hostess. "Unfortunately I have not the power to compete with your noble protectress. I could not, in any case, offer you the rights of a daughter of the house because my parents are both living—in their eyes the fact that you bear the name of D'Orlowska would unfortunately prevent their ever admitting you into their presence."
"What, her own grandparents!" cried the old lady, indignantly. "Could they know that they have a granddaughter, and yet die without seeing her? You can never make me believe it."
" My dear Frau Hofrathin," replied the baron with an icy smile, "the indelible consciousness of aristocratic birth, the lofty sense of the unsullied honor of our race, are traits of the Hirschsprung family which I also share —love holds a secondary place in our hearts. I perfectly understand my parents' opinions, and should pursue precisely the same course, were one of my daughters to so far forget herself."
"Well, the men of your family may hold such views, perhaps," replied the old lady persistently, " but the grandmother—surely she must have a heart of flint if she can hear of this child and not—"
"She is the least forgiving of us all," he interrupted with calm conviction. "My mother numbers among her relatives members of some of the oldest families in the land, and guards the honor of her race as few women would have the strength to do. But you are entirely at liberty, my dear madame," he added, with a slight touch of irony in his tone, "to make a trial in behalf of your protegee. So far from opposing you, I assure you that I will aid you as much as is possible."
"Oh, do not say another word, I implore you!" cried Felicitas, in an agony of pain, as she released herself from her friend's embrace, and clasped her hand beseechingly. "Be assured, sir," she continued, calmly, after a moment's pause, though her lips quivered, "that it will never occur to me to claim any rights once my mother's—she cast them all aside for the sake of her love, and after what you have just said, she can only have gained by the exchange. I have grown up in the belief that I stood alone in the world, so I now say: ' I have no grandparents.'"
"That sounds harsh and bitter!" he replied, somewhat embarrassed. "Yet," he added, with a shrug of his shoulders, "in the present condition of affairs, I am compelled to let you retain your belief. But I will do all that lies in my power. I have no doubt that I can induce my father to make you a large yearly allowance."
"I thank you!" she hastily replied. "But I have just told you that I have no grandparents; can you expect me to receive alms from strangers?"
He again blushed, but now it was the deep flush of shame which, perhaps for the first time in his life, filled the aristocratic nobleman. Evidently greatly confused, he took his hat—no one detained him. Turning to the young lawyer, he alluded, almost in a whisper, to a few points connected with the business they had just discussed; then, as if moved by a sudden impulse, held out his hand to Felicitas, but letting both hands fall slowly by her sides, the young girl courtesied to him formally and profoundly. It was a sharp retaliation for the juggler's daughter to inflict upon the haughty Baron von Hirschsprung! He drew back in confusion, and, bereft for the moment of all aristocratic dignity, bowed to the others with a shrug of his shoulders and accompanied by the young lawyer, left the room.
As the door closed behind him, Felicitas, with an agitated gesture, suddenly covered her face with her hands.
"Fay!" cried the professor, holding out his arms. She looked up and—fled to their protection. Clasping her arms around his neck, she hid her face on his breast. The wild young bird submitted forever; it did not make the least attempt to fly. How sweet it was to rest within the shelter of those strong arms, after the weary lonely flight through winds and tempests that had almost beaten it to death!
At this moment the councilor's wife made a sign to her smiling husband, and both noiselessly left the room.
"John, I will!" cried the young girl, raising her long lashes, on which tears of filial grief were still trembling.
"At last!" he answered, clasping his arms still more closely around the slender form those words had made his own. What passion, what tenderness glowed in the stern gray eyes that gazed down at the smiling, upturned face.
"I have waited hour after hour for those words of happiness," he continued.  "Thank God, they have been spoken by the impulse of your own heart. Else I sublet have been forced to plead for them again this evening, and I doubt whether they would have sounded as sweetly in my ears as now. Wicked Fay, must I pass through such bitter experiences ere you could resolve to make me happy?"
"No," she replied, releasing herself from his clasp. "It was not the thought of the change in your circumstances that conquered me; it was in the moment that you so firmly and consistently refused to give me back the book that entire confidence in you first took possession of me—"
"And a few minutes after, when the secret was revealed to me," he interrupted, again drawing her into his embrace, "I perceived that, spite of all your harshness, defiance, and pride, you cherished in your heart a woman's true, joy-bestowing love for me. You would have sacrificed yourself, rather than let me suffer the pain of a sorrowful experience. We have both been trained in a hard school, and—do not deceive yourself, Fay, concerning the task still before you! I have lost my mother, my faith in human nature has received a severe blow, and— this must also be told—I have at this moment scarcely anything except my profession."
"Oh, how happy I am in being permitted to be near you!" she said, pressing her hand lightly on his lips. "I cannot hope to supply the place of all you have lost, but whatever a tender wife can do to brighten the life of a noble husband shall be accomplished."
"And when will these proud lips condescend to call me ‘thou?'" he asked, smiling down at her.
Her fair face flushed to the very roots of her hair.
"Ah, John, thou wilt not stay too long away from me?" she murmured, beseechingly.
"Did you really think I would go without you?" he said, with a low laugh. "If the intelligence did not come in so appropriately at this moment, you would not have learned till this evening that you will set out with me for Bonn at eight o'clock to-morrow morning, under the care of your dear friend, the councilor's wife. She has entered into a little plot against you, my child—the trunks have been standing packed, ever since yesterday, in her guest-chamber upstairs. Assisted by her advice, I have even chosen the traveling-hat I wanted to see on that proud little head. You will spend a month with Frau von Berg as my betrothed, and then—then a lovely wife will sit in the study of the grim professor, who is to bring home a frowning brow and cross looks every day."
 *         *           *          *           *          *           *
Baron von Hirschsprung proved his father's title, as the sole heir, to the old mam'selle's legacy, which was paid to him. He declared all the Hirschsprung claims upon the Hellwig family settled, when the professor had doubled Aunt Cordula's thirty thousand thalers by adding thirty thousand from his own property, thus replacing the full sum of sixty thousand.
Frau Hellwig was obliged to pay a thousand thalers for the burned MS. of the Bach operetta, which she did with extreme reluctance, because she received assurance from all quarters that, in case of a lawsuit, she would be forced to make a far greater pecuniary sacrifice.
"Why should I deny it?" said the young lawyer, blushing deeply and speaking with deep emotion, as he stood with his friend the professor, on the morning of the latter's departure, in one of the deep recesses, waiting for the two ladies. "I grudge you Felicitas! The first time I saw her, I knew her to be one of the rarest of God's creatures, and it will be long ere I can forget. But I have one consolation; she has made you a different man, added a new convert to the good cause of the unassailable moral rights of humanity. My free, and certainly sound views of our social wrongs, could have no more striking illustration than—pardon the bitter truth—the fact that the proud Hellwigs were heavily in debt to the kindred of the despised player's child. Some people stand apart, looking arrogantly down upon others, and the blind world does not suspect how rotten are its most respected institutions, and that a fresh breeze of freedom is necessary, to sweep away everything that favors arrogance, heartlessness, and with them a whole succession of the worst crimes."
"You are right, and I will accept this bitter conclusion calmly," said the professor, gravely, "for in truth I have greatly erred. But the path I had to retrace was very rugged and stony, so do not grudge me the prize I toiled so hard to win."
*******
The professor introduced his young wife into the "exclusive" circle of the university families, and, spite, of the malicious insinuations of the councilor's widow, the beautiful bride was everywhere received with admiration and love.   The vision that once so charmed his imagination became a reality. Felicitas smooths the lines of care from his brow and when, in the evening, seated in his pleasant home, he begs: "Sing to me, Fay!" the superb contralto voice instantly pours forth its melody, the voice that once drove him from his mother's house into the Thuringian forest, because it so irresistibly attracted him to the juggler's bewitching daughter.
The professor had had all the furniture in the rooms occupied by the old mam'selle removed to Bonn.    The piano, busts, and luxuriant garlands of ivy now adorn Felicitas's own room.    The young mistress of the house still keeps her valuable old-fashioned silver in the secret compartment of the antique cabinet; but the gray box, with its contents was burned by the professor on the day the Hirschsprungs had been paid the full amount of their claim.   Thus the book was destroyed, the wrong righted, so far as human power could do so, and AuntCordula's spirit, untroubled, could pursue the flight to higher spheres it had already begun on earth.
Heinrich lives with the young couple in Bonn. He is held in high honor and feels extremely content; but whenever he meets in the street the councilor's widow, now clad in silks and velvet made in the latest fashion, he mutters to himself with a smile—while she averts her head as though she had never seen his honest face before: " Those little forget-me-nots were not the least use, most gracious lady."
The beautiful woman can no longer adorn her faultless-white arm with the bracelet; her father "conscientiously" delivered it to the Hirschsprung heirs, with the remark that it had come into his possession "by mistake or accident." He lives on very hostile terms with his daughter, because she committed the "incomprehensible folly" of proving his share in the theft of the Hirschsprung property. She has been compelled to relinquish the halo of piety and gentleness, but still takes part with great ostentation in all charitable plans, while her little daughter, left to the care of strangers, is fast sinking into the grave. And he, the devout relative on the Rhine? It is not to be imagined that any Nemesis will overtake him in this world. He will, with pious resignation, term everything that may come upon him a trial sent to test his Christian faith. So let us leave him to the verdict of public opinion. The sharpest punishment that can be inflicted upon a hypocrite is to have the mask torn from his face before the gaze of the world.
Frau Hellwig still sits behind her asclepias plant. Misfortune has at last crossed her sanctified threshold— she has lost both her children.  John she cast off, and one day the news came that Nathanael had been killed in a duel. He left many debts and a clouded reputation. The iron expression of her features has somewhat softened, and many persons assert that the head once held so high, with its rigid air of arrogance and infallibility, often sinks wearily on her breast. The professor, a short time ago, wrote to inform her of the birth of his first child. Since that time the little knitting-basket, which formerly contained nothing but balls of coarse blue and white yarn, has held a pretty bit of rose-colored work, on which the lady often knits by stealth.  Frederica avers that it is no missionary stocking, but a lovely sock for an infant.  Whether the dainty rose-colored article will ever inclose the nimble feet of the youngest member of the Hellwig family, we do not know—but for the honor of humanity be it said: There is no soul so hardened that it does not contain one soft spot, one noble aspiration, one chord that will give forth melody—though it is often unaware of this hidden treasure unless some external circumstance reveals it.    Perhaps love for her grandchildren may be this warm spot in Frau Hellwig's heart which, hitherto unsuspected, may yet diffuse a soft radiance that will melt all the ice in her nature. We will hope so, dear reader.







