dim. The rain had ceased, and through the misty window-panes could be

seen a glimmer of white blossoms, and behind them a pale-blue sky in which the last stars were slowly fading.

Then the door opened, and Minna entered. "Come, Erika," she said, in a low voice.

Erika arose hastily. "Have I really a little brother?" she asked, anxiously.

Minna shook her head. "It is dead."

"And my mother?"

"Ah, come quickly."

She drew the girl along with her through the long whitewashed corridor. In the room leading to the dying woman's chamber Strachinsky was standing with the physician. The latter stood with bowed head; Strachinsky was weeping.

Erika went directly to her mother's bedside. The dying woman's hair was brushed back from her temples; her lips were blue. Erika kneeled down and buried her face in the bedclothes. Her mother laid her hand upon her head and stroked it--ah, how feebly! But how soothing was the touch!

In one corner old Minna kneeled, praying.

Outside, the world was brightening; there was a golden splendour over all the earth. The birds twittered, at first faintly, then loudly and shrilly. The dying woman stirred among the pillows: Erika was to hear the dear voice once more.

"My child, my poor, dear child, I have been a poor mother to you----"

"Oh, mother, darling----"

"My death will make it all right. Write to----"

At this moment Strachinsky knocked at the door. "Emma!" he whispered.

The dying woman's face expressed positive horror. "Do not let him come in!" she exclaimed.

Erika flew to the door and turned the key; when she returned to the bedside her mother was struggling for breath.

Evidently most anxious to impart some information to her daughter, she had not the strength to do so. Once more she passed her hand over Erika's head,--it was for the last time; then the hand grew heavier; it no longer lavished a caress; it was a mere weight.

Erika moved, and looked at her mother. The tears stood in her eyes unshed, so wondrous was her mother's face. The battle was won.

All the pain of life--the sweet pain of supreme rapture hinting to us of that heaven which we cannot attain, and that other bitter pain pointing to the grave at which we shudder--was for her extinct.

Erika threw herself upon the body and covered it with kisses. With difficulty could she be induced to leave it; but when they led her from the room, as soon as the door closed behind her she was docile and gentle. She seemed bewildered, and walked slowly with bowed head beside Minna. Once only she looked back when a thin, melancholy wail resounded through the quiet morning air. It was the bell in the little tower of the castle, tolling restlessly.

Years afterwards she could not bring herself to recall in memory the terrible days that followed,--the dreary burden that she dragged about with her from morning until night, the sleep born of utter exhaustion, the slow pursuance of daily custom as in a dream, the awakening with nerves refreshed by forgetfulness, and then the sudden consciousness of misery, the sensation of soreness in every limb, a sensation intensified by every motion, by a word spoken in her presence, the restlessness which drove her hither and thither until in some dim corner she would crouch down and cry,--cry until the very fount of tears seemed dry and her burning eyes would close again in the leaden sleep which still had to yield to the terrible awakening.

She felt the most earnest desire to do something, to perform some office of love for her mother; but scarcely for one moment was she left alone with the body.

Strangers prepared the loved one for the tomb, the coachman and the gardener lifted her into the coffin. Shortly before it was closed, Strachinsky remembered that his wife had once expressed a wish to be buried in the dress and veil she had worn at her marriage with him. But neither could be found. The cabinet where she was wont to hoard her treasures was empty, except for a lock of hair of her dead boy, and this they laid beneath her head.

Her husband bestowed but little thought upon the circumstance. He honestly regretted the dead, and lost his appetite for two days; but as the time for the funeral drew near, he worked himself into an exalted frame of mind, which found vent in solemn pomposity.

He had ordered a hearse from the city. Erika was standing at a window of the corridor when, with nodding plumes, it rattled into the castle court-yard, and her misery reached the point of despair.

Until then she had not quite comprehended it all. She heard the men stagger down the stairs beneath the weight of the coffin, heard it knock against the wall at a sharp turn.

She followed it to the grave. All walked behind the hearse, the shabby splendour of which suited so ill with the rural landscape.

Most of the gentry of the surrounding country, who had long since ceased to visit at Luzano, assembled to pay the last honours to the poor woman, but they were only a speck in the endless funeral train. Behind the few black coats and high hats following close upon the hearse came a swarming crowd. All the peasants, day-labourers, and beggars from Luzano and the surrounding estates paid the last token of respect to the martyr gone to her eternal rest: she had been good and kind to all.

It was the first of May. The fields were clothed in a light green, and the apple-trees showed pink with half-open blossoms. A reddish smoke curled upward to the skies from the flames of the torches. And there was a flutter of sighs among the blossoming boughs of the trees and above the meadows,--the breath of the freshly-born spring.

Through the new life strode death.

Noiselessly the funeral train moved on. Erika walked almost mechanically, looking neither to the right nor to the left, only moving forward. On a sudden something attracted her gaze. On a little elevation by the roadside, between two apple-trees, stood a young peasant woman with a child in her arms,--a child who stared at the long procession with large eyes of wonder.