ovmark jumps upon me now, and tries to caress me. It is not long since
he used always to howl with terror when he saw me."

"My dear lord," said the chaplain, "there is a spirit dwelling in good
beasts, though dreamy and unconscious."

As the day wore on, the stillness in the hall increased. The last
hour of the aged knight was drawing near, but he met it calmly and
fearlessly. The chaplain and Sintram prayed beside his couch. The
retainers knelt devoutly around. At length the dying man said: "Is that
the prayer-bell in Verena's cloister?" Sintram's looks said yea; while
warm tears fell on the colourless cheeks of his father. A gleam shone in
the old man's eyes, the morning cloud stood close over him, and then the
gleam, the morning cloud, and life with them, departed from him.

CHAPTER 29

A few days afterwards Sintram stood in the parlour of the convent, and
waited with a beating heart for his mother to appear. He had seen her
for the last time when, a slumbering child, he had been awakened by her
warm farewell kisses, and then had fallen asleep again, to wonder in his
dreams what his mother had wanted with him, and to seek her in vain the
next morning in the castle and in the garden. The chaplain was now at
his side, rejoicing in the chastened rapture of the knight, whose fierce
spirit had been softened, on whose cheeks a light reflection of that
solemn morning cloud yet lingered.

The inner doors opened. In her white veil, stately and noble, the Lady
Verena came forward, and with a heavenly smile she beckoned her son to
approach the grating. There could be no thought here of any passionate
outbreak, whether of sorrow or of joy.

"In whose sweet presence sorrow dares not lower
Nor expectation rise
Too high for earth."--Christian Year
(Footnote in 1901 text.)

The holy peace which had its abode within these walls would have found
its way to a heart less tried and less purified than that which beat in
Sintram's bosom. Shedding some placid tears, the son knelt before his
mother, kissed her flowing garments through the grating, and felt as
if in paradise, where every wish and every care is hushed. "Beloved
mother," said he, "let me become a holy man, as thou art a holy woman.
Then I will betake myself to the cloister yonder; and perhaps I might
one day be deemed worthy to be thy confessor, if illness or the
weakness of old age should keep the