aide should come here and
let me go to the master."

"You will stay here," replied Gertrude, bending her eyes on her book.

"The master looks so pale," proceeded the chattering woman. "Mr.
Baumhagen was telling him in the garden-hall today that Wolff is dying,
and he struck his hand on the table till all the dishes rattled and
said, 'Everything goes against me in this matter!'"

Gertrude looked up. The color came back into her pale cheek, and she
drew a long breath.

"Dying?" she asked.

"Yes. I heard Mr. Baumhagen trying to soothe him--saying it was all for
the best and he hoped everything might be comfortably settled now."

"What was my uncle doing there?" inquired Gertrude.

Johanna was embarrassed.

"I don't know, Mrs. Linden, but if I am not mistaken, he was trying to
persuade Mr. Linden to--that--ah, ma'am!"--Johanna came and stood
before the table which she had set so daintily.

"What is between you and Mr. Linden I don't know, and it is none of my
business to ask. But you see, ma'am, I have had a husband too, that I
loved dearly--and life is so short, and I think we shouldn't make even
one hour of it bitter, ma'am; the dead never come back again. But if I
could know that my Fritz was still in the world and was sitting over
there behind the hills, not so very far away from me--good Lord, how I
would run to him even if he was ever so cross with me! I would fall on
his neck and say, 'Fritz, you may scold me and beat me, it is all one
to me so long as I have you!'"

And the young widow forgot the respect due to her mistress and threw a
corner of her apron over her eyes and began to cry bitterly.

"Don't cry, Johanna," said Gertrude. "You don't understand--I too would
rather it were so than that--" She stopped, overpowered by a feeling of
choking anguish.

Johanna shook her head.

"'Taint right," she said, as she went out.

And Gertrude left the table and seated herself at the window, laying
her forehead against the cool pane. Are not some words as powerful as
if God himself had spoken them?

When some time after, Johanna entered the room again, she found it
empty, and the table untouched. And as she began to remove the simple
dishes, Gertrude entered and put a key down on the table. She had been
in her father's room and the pale face with its frame of brown hair,
looked as if turned to stone.

"If visitors come to-morrow, or at any time, I cannot receive them,"
she said, "unless it be my Uncle H