poken to Anna Maria in spite of
all his love, and here he even spreads out his hands for the little feet
to walk on!'

"Indeed, she had not said too much. He did lay down his hands for the
little feet, and they walked on them without particularly noticing it.
Klaus had a boundless love for his wife, and she received this love as a
tribute due her. She had no conception of what she possessed in him.

"I do not know if he felt this. Occasionally, when Susanna was asleep,
or making her toilet, or gone to a drive, and he had an hour to spare,
he would sit with me up in my room, and would look so weary and
oppressed. We spoke often, too, of Anna Maria; but when Susanna was
present he did not mention her name, for at that a shadow regularly
passed over her face, and her chattering lips grew silent.

"'My old Anna Maria!' he would say; 'she is still angry with me, and yet
she is such a good, reasonable girl.' The last words were unconsciously
accented. 'How pleasant it would be if she and Susanna could live
together like sisters--the unfortunate stubbornness. Do you suppose,
aunt, she will come when the old cradle down-stairs--?' And his eyes
grew moist at this thought.

"'I do not know, Klaus, but I think so,' said I, 'if Susanna can only
forget--'

"'Ah, aunt, I place my entire hope on the cradle about her, too. Anna
Maria shall be godmother; I will not have it otherwise. Please God, it
may not be far off!'

"And was it then so far off? On a dull, sultry August night, I was
still sitting in my easy-chair by the window, and could see distant
flashes of lightning over the barns; the air was uncomfortable and
stifling, or was it only the imagination of my old, restlessly beating
heart, and my thoughts, which were below with Susanna, anxious and
prayerful?

"Ah, what does not pass through one's soul in such an hour--trembling
joy and happy fear, and each minute seems to stretch out endlessly. I
listened to the walking down-stairs, to the sound of the opening and
shutting of doors; would some one never come up with the glad news?

"And my thoughts wandered back to the night when Anna Maria was born,
when I sat up here in the same fear and anxiety. Klaus had gone to sleep
in the arm-chair over there. I had not disturbed him, had let him sleep,
till his father came to call him to his mother's death-bed. The boy's
pale, frightened face stood before me so plainly this evening, as he
knelt before the cradle of his little sis