s not permitted to speak to her, could only regard her from a
distance, and not tell her how she loved her."

The girl uttered a cry of compassion, and wound her arms round her
mother's neck.

"Oh, the cruelty of it!--the cruelty of it, mother! But why did you not
come to me? Do you think I would not have left everything to go with
you--you, alone and suffering?"

For a time the mother could not answer, so deep were her sobs.

"Natalushka," she said at length, in a broken voice, "no fear of any
danger threatening myself would have kept me from you; be sure of that.
But there was something else. My father had become compromised--the
Austrians said it was assassination; it was not!" For a second some hot
blood mounted to her cheeks. "I say it was a fair duel, and your
grandfather himself was nearly killed; but he escaped, and got into
hiding among some faithful friends--poor people, who had known our
family in better times. The Government did what they could to arrest
him; he was expressly exempted from the amnesty, this old man, who was
wounded, who was incapable of movement almost, whom every one expected
to die from day to day, and a word would have betrayed him and destroyed
him. Can you wonder, Natalushka, with that threat hanging over me--that
menace that the moment I spoke to you meant that my father would be
delivered to his enemies--that I said 'No, not yet will I speak to my
little daughter; I cannot sacrifice my father's life even to the
affection of a mother! But soon, when I have given him such care and
solace as he has the right to demand from me, then I will set out to see
my beautiful child--not with baskets of flowers, haunting the
door-steps--not with a little trinket, to drop in her lap, and perhaps
set her mind thinking--no, but with open arms and open heart, to see if
she is not afraid to call me mother.'"

"Poor mother, how you must have suffered," the girl murmured, holding
her close to her bosom. "But with your powerful friends--those to whom
you appealed to before--why did you not go to them, and get safety from
the terrible threat hanging over you? Could they not protect him, my
grandfather, as they saved your cousin Konrad?"

"Alas, child, your grandfather never belonged to the association! Of
what use was he to them--a sufferer expecting each day to be his last,
and not daring to move beyond the door of the peasant's cottage that
sheltered him? many a time he used to say to me, 'Natalie,