eculiar look at Susanna. In the next room,
through which we had to pass, stood the cradle; alone and unwatched
slumbered the poor little fellow in it, without a suspicion that the
black wings of death were hovering so near to his young existence. 'No
hope!' They are fearful words.

"Stuermer came with me into the chamber of death. I did not wonder at it;
it seemed to me as if it must be so, as if he, the best and oldest
friend of the family, had a right to come to the dying bed of our Klaus.
Anna Maria was on her knees beside the bed, her hands folded; she was
waiting for that last look.

"Then the house grew still, the servants stole about on tip-toe, and
outside, before the front door, stood the day-laborers and the men, with
their wives, looking timidly and with red eyes up to the windows. Edwin
Stuermer sat opposite me, deep in shadow, behind the curtains of the bed;
he leaned his head on his hand, and looked at Anna Maria and at the pale
face there on the pillow. I could not distinguish his features, but I
heard his deep and heavy breathing. I do not know if Klaus looked at
Anna Maria again, I could not see the two from my place. But I heard him
whisper once more: 'My child--Susanna' and 'Anna Maria, my old lass!'
with an expression of warm tenderness.

"It was deathly still in the room; no sound but the swift, low ticking
of the clock. I started up all at once at this stillness. When I came up
to the bed Anna Maria was still on her knees and holding her brother's
hand, her fair head buried in the pillow.

"Seized by a terrible foreboding, I went up to her. She started up. 'My
only brother!' she sobbed out. To my heart penetrated this shrill,
broken cry: 'My only brother!'

"Then I heard the door open softly, and saw Stuermer go out; he held his
hand over his eyes, though it was so dark round about us, so fearfully
dark."

CHAPTER XIX.

"As formerly Anna Maria had been baptized beside the dead body of her
mother, so now was the little boy at his father's coffin. On the same
spot where, scarcely a year before, the clergyman had married the young
couple stood the black, silver-mounted coffin, almost covered over with
wreaths and flowers. The folding-doors of the hall were opened wide; the
last crimson ray of the setting sun fell through the windows and made
the light of the numerous candles appear feeble and yellow, and touched
Anna Maria's face with a rosy shimmer, as she bent over the child in her