for next day, and I walked alone through the dusky paths
in the garden. It was an unusually warm August evening; the moon was
rising in the east, the steel-blue sky above was cloudless, and from the
wood there came a light, refreshing breath of air. From the court came
the sound of men and maids singing, as they made merry after the hot
day's work. Ah! how many, many such evenings had I known here, and this
one brought back to me a precious memory of my youth, with all its
pleasure and all its suffering. Every tree, every bush I had known from
my earliest youth. Everything which life had brought to me was
associated with this little spot of ground. That feeling is known only
to one who can say to himself, 'Here on this spot you were born, here
will you live, and here will you die,' and it is a sweet feeling! So I
sat down in perfect content on a bench at the end of the garden, and in
my dim retreat rejoiced in all the beauty about me, yet at the same time
worrying about Susanna. Then I suddenly heard some one talking not far
from me:

"'And then don't look so sorrowful to-morrow, do you hear, Susy? And in
any case wear the white dress to church to-morrow; I have my reasons for
wishing it. And to-morrow afternoon I will come; it has been long
enough, I can certainly come to visit you for once. And don't let out
anything, darling. What will you answer if they ask you where you have
been so long?'

"'Nothing at all!' answered Susanna's voice defiantly. 'I do not like to
tell a lie, I shall not do it; but I shall not come to Dambitz again, it
is too far away for me.'

"'Very fine!' was the reply; and I now recognized the voice of the old
actress. 'I have walked about with you in my arms all night long many a
time, no step was too much for me; and you will not go an hour's
distance away for my sake? I think of nothing but you and your future; I
devise plans and take pains to make your lot happy; I take up my abode
in a wretched peasant's house with a shingle roof, and everlasting smell
of the stable only to be near you; I sew my eyes and fingers sore--and
you--?' And she broke out in violent sobbing, which, however, it seemed
to me, made no impression upon Susanna, for she remained still as a
mouse.

"'Go, Susy, be good,' the old woman began again. 'I have just given you
the pretty little dress to-day; look at it by and by and see how
carefully it is embroidered.' And now her voice sank to a whisper, and
immediately af