tets, which, she knew, Krespel in the heyday of his courtship had
never grown tired of hearing her mother sing. The tears ran in streams
down Krespel's cheeks; even Angela he had never heard sing like that.
Antonia's voice was of a very remarkable and altogether peculiar
timbre, at one time it was like the sighing of an AEolian harp, at
another like the warbled gush of the nightingale. It seemed as if there
was not room for such notes in the human breast. Antonia, blushing with
joy and happiness, sang on and on--all her most beautiful songs,
B---- playing between whiles as only enthusiasm that is intoxicated
with delight can play. Krespel was at first transported with rapture,
then he grew thoughtful--still--absorbed in reflection. At length
he leapt to his feet, pressed Antonia to his heart, and begged
her in a low husky voice, "Sing no more if you love me--my heart
is bursting--I fear--I fear--don't sing again."

"No!" remarked the Councillor next day to Doctor R----, "when, as she
sang, her blushes gathered into two dark red spots on her pale cheeks,
I knew it had nothing to do with your nonsensical family likenesses, I
knew it was what I dreaded." The Doctor, whose countenance had shown
signs of deep distress from the very beginning of the conversation,
replied, "Whether it arises from a too early taxing of her powers of
song, or whether the fault is Nature's--enough, Antonia labours under
an organic failure in the chest, while it is from it too that her voice
derives its wonderful power and its singular timbre, which I might
almost say transcend the limits of human capabilities of song. But it
bears the announcement of her early death; for, if she continues to
sing, I wouldn't give her at the most more than six months longer to
live." Krespel's heart was lacerated as if by the stabs of hundreds of
stinging knives. It was as though his life had been for the first time
overshadowed by a beautiful tree full of the most magnificent blossoms,
and now it was to be sawn to pieces at the roots, so that it could not
grow green and blossom any more. His resolution was taken. He told
Antonia all; he put the alternatives before her--whether she would
follow her betrothed and yield to his and the world's seductions, but
with the certainty of dying early, or whether she would spread round
her father in his old days that joy and peace which had hitherto been
unknown to him, and so secure a long life. She threw herself sobbing
int