arms.

"The long white christening-robe of the child contrasted strangely with
the deep black of the mourning dress which enveloped the tall figure of
the girl. I stood beside her, my hands resting on the child; by my side
was Isa in a profusion of black crape. A throng of mourners filled the
hall, gentlemen and ladies. I do not remember who they all were, but I
can still see Stuermer's pale face.

"A chair had been placed aright for Susanna, and she sat in it as if
petrified in pain and sorrow--a strange sight, this child in widow's
garb. The raging pain had abated, she had wept and sobbed herself weary;
now only great tears rolled down her marble cheeks. Bluish rings lay
about her eyes, and made them shine more ardently than ever. She kept
her slender hands folded and listened to the words of the clergyman, a
picture of the most hopeless and comfortless pain.

"How many eyes then grew moist; how the servants wept outside the door!
The clergyman spoke affectingly; once before he had thus baptized a
child in this house. A quiver went through Anna Maria's tall figure, but
she pressed her lips firmly together. She did not weep, she only pressed
the child closer to her; then she took it to the young mother. I can
still see how Susanna sat there, with the little boy on her lap, as the
clergyman blessed them. She bent her head so that the black veil almost
covered her and the child.

"But now the clergyman passed on to the funeral address, and when he
mentioned the full name of the dead man I saw Isa spring up quickly--the
young wife had fainted. She was carried to her room. A murmur of
sympathy went through the assembly. 'A bruise for her whole life,' I
heard whispered behind me. 'Poor young wife--still half a child! She
will never recover from it!'

"Of Anna Maria, who stood there, no one thought. No one had said a
sympathetic word to her. All the pity belonged to the young widow, still
so young, so charming, and already so unhappy! They knew she was not on
good terms with her sister-in-law. They knew Anna Maria only as proud
and cold.

"Anna Maria, if they could have seen you late that evening, in the dark
garden, at the fresh grave; if they had found you, as I found you, so
undone with grief and pain, kneeling on the damp earth, unwilling to
leave the flower-strewn mound under which your only brother lay--would
they not have granted you, too, a word of sympathy?

"Those were sad, dreadful weeks which now followed