her of the
perishable nature of man. Where were all the hands that had made it? the
eyes that had delighted in it? She thought how some time her
spinning-wheel, too, would stand here, and how many days and hours must
pass before strange hands would bring it here, as superfluous rubbish.
Strange hands! She felt a sudden fear. Strange hands! For centuries
Buetze had descended in direct line from father to son--and now?

Anna Maria rose quickly and went to the window, as if to frighten away
unpleasant thoughts; the soft, mild spring air blew toward her and
reminded her of the most unhappy hour of her life, and again she turned
and walked quickly through the room. Then her foot struck against
something, and she saw the cradle, lightly rocking in front of her--the
heavy, gayly painted old cradle in which the Hegewitzes had had their
first slumber for more than two hundred years--Klaus too, and she too.
And Anna Maria knelt down and threw her arms about the little rocking
cradle, and kissed the glaring painted roses and cherubs, and a few
bitter tears flowed from under her lashes, the first that she had shed
since that day.

"Why did I, too, have to lie there in the cradle? It might have been so
different, so much better," she thought. "Poor thing, you must decay and
fall to dust here, and at last irreverent hands will take you and throw
you into the fire. Poor Klaus! For my sake!" And almost tenderly she
wiped the dust from the arabesques on the back, and shook up the little
yellow pillows.

Just then came the sound of a quick, manly step in the passage, and
before Anna Maria had time to rise, Klaus stood in the open door.

"Do I find you here?" he asked in astonishment, and at first laughing,
then more serious, he looked at Anna Maria, who rose and came toward
him.

"I wanted to let some fresh air in here, and found our old cradle,
Klaus," she said quietly.

"Yes, Anna Maria--but you have been crying," he rejoined.

"Oh, I was only thinking that it was quite unnecessary that the poor
thing should have been hunted up again for me!" The bitterness of her
heart pressed unconsciously to her lips to-day.

"Anna Maria! What puts such thoughts into your head?" asked Klaus von
Hegewitz, in amazement. And drawing his sister to him, he stroked her
hair lovingly. "What should I do without you?"

She made a slight convulsive movement, and freed herself from his arms.

"But, listen, sister," he continued, "I know whence such