stand before you in a still worse guise. When will the doctor let
me hear you sing?"

"Next week; but you musn't expect too much. You have too high an opinion
of me. Remember the proverb about still waters. Here in the depths it
often looks far less peaceful, than you probably suppose."

"But you have learned to keep the surface calm when it storms; I
haven't. A strange stillness has stolen over me here. Whether I owe it
to illness or to the atmosphere that pervades this house, I can't tell,
but how long will it last? My soul used to be like the sea, when the
hissing waves plunge into black gulfs, the seagulls scream, and the
fishermen's wives pray on the shore. Now the sea is calm. Don't be too
much frightened, if it begins to rage again."

At these words Maria clasped the excited girl's hands, saying
beseechingly:

"Be quiet, be quiet, Henrica. You must think only of your recovery now.
And shall I confess something? I believe everything hard can be more
easily borne, if we can cast it impatiently forth like the sea of which
you speak; with me one thing is piled on another and remains lying
there, as if buried under the sand."

"Until the hurricane comes, that sweeps it away. I don't want to be an
evil prophet, but you surely remember these words. What a wild, careless
thing I was! Then a day came, that made a complete revolution in my
whole nature."

"Did a false love wound you?" asked Maria modestly.

"No, except the false love of another," replied Henrica bitterly. "When
I was a child this fluttering heart often throbbed more quickly, I
don't know how often. First I felt something more than reverence for
the one-eyed chaplain, our music-teacher, and every morning placed fresh
flowers on his window, which he never noticed. Then--I was probably
fifteen--I returned the ardent glances of Count Brederode's pretty page.
Once he tried to be tender, and received a blow from my riding-whip.
Next came a handsome young nobleman, who wanted to marry me when I was
barely sixteen, but he was even more heavily in debt than my father, so
he was sent home. I shed no tears for him, and when, two months after,
at a tournament in Brussels, I saw Don Frederic, the son of the great
Duke of Alva, fancied myself as much in love with him as ever any lady
worshipped her Amadis, though the affair never went beyond looks. Then
the storm, of which I have already spoken, burst, and that put an end to
love-making. I will tell you more abo