for the
_attache_ was little better than an old woman himself--And so on, and so
on, thought the old lady, and she wondered that Rachel, who had such a
clever father, had not inherited a little more sense.

Sandsgaard was silent and desolate from top to bottom. The body lay
upstairs in the little room on the north side, and white curtains were
hanging in front of all the windows of the second story. Not a sound was
heard, except the monotonous step of one, who went pacing unceasingly to
and fro in the empty rooms. Thus had Uncle Richard been wandering every
day since his brother's death. Restlessly he passed in and out of one
room after another, then up and down the long ballroom; now and again
into the room where the body lay, ever to and fro, in and out, the whole
livelong day, and far into the night.

Rachel was more grieved at the loss of her father than she could have
believed possible during his lifetime. But a change had lately taken
place in her nature; she, who was so exacting towards others, was now
brought to examine herself, and could see how much there was in her own
nature which required reform. She could now see plainly enough, that it
was principally her own fault that she and her father had not understood
each other better. It was only during his illness, that they had both
come to know how many ideas they had in common, and what they might have
been to each other. Now it was too late, and she looked back on her
wasted life with regret; for Jacob Worse's idea seemed to her quite
impracticable.

The day before the funeral, Madeleine was sitting in the room which
looked on to the garden. It was a raw, cold spring morning, with a
drizzling rain from the south-west, and she had been obliged to close
the window. Upstairs she could hear her father's heavy footfall, which
came nearer, passed overhead, and then became lost in the distance.
Never had she felt so oppressed, sick at heart, and lonely as in that
house, in which there reigned the silence which always seems to
accompany death.

A knock was heard at the door, and Pastor Martens entered the room. Mrs.
Garman had particularly invited him to pay them a visit every day.

"Good morning, Miss Madeleine. How do you feel to-day?"

"Thanks," answered she, "I am pretty well; I mean about as well as I
usually am."

"That means, I am afraid, not particularly well," said the clergyman,
sympathetically. "If I were your doctor I should order you to go
somew