would gladly remain with
you much longer. But if I am to leave you, I desire that you should
not wholly forget me; and, therefore, I have brought a ring for each of
you, which you must now place upon the fore-finger. As you grow older
you can continue to change it until it fits the little finger; but you
must wear it for your lifetime."

With these words she took the five rings she wore upon her fingers,
which she drew off, one after the other, with a look so sad and yet so
affectionate, that I pressed my eyes closely to keep from weeping. She
gave the first ring to her eldest brother and kissed him, the second
and third to the two princesses, and the fourth to the youngest prince,
and kissed them all as she gave them the rings. I stood near by, and,
looking fixedly at her white hand, saw that she still had a ring upon
her finger; but she leaned back and appeared wearied. My eyes met
hers, and as the eyes of a child speak so loudly, she must have easily
known my thoughts, I would rather not have had the last ring, for I
felt that I was a stranger; that I did not belong to her, and that she
was not as affectionate to me as to her brothers and sisters. Then
came a sharp pain in my breast as if a vein had burst or a nerve had
been severed, and I knew not which way to turn to conceal my anguish.

She soon raised herself again, placed her hand upon my forehead and
looked down into my heart so deeply that I felt I had not a thought
invisible to her. She slowly drew the last ring from her finger, gave
it to me and said; "I intended to have taken this with me, when I went
from you, but it is better you should wear it and think of me when I am
no longer with you. Read the words engraved upon the ring: 'As God
wills.' You have a passionate heart, easily moved. May life subdue
but not harden it." Then she kissed me as she had her brothers and
gave me the ring.

All my feelings I do not truly know. I had then grown up to boyhood,
and the mild beauty of the suffering angel could not linger in my young
heart without alluring it. I loved her as only a boy can love, and
boys love with an intensity and truth and purity which few preserve in
their youth and manhood; but I believed she belonged to the "strange
people" to whom you are not allowed to speak of love. I scarcely
understood the earnest words she spoke to me. I only felt that her
soul was as near to mine as one human soul can be to another. All
bitterness was