severe thraldom of Madame Charlotte Staubach,--creating a hope,
or perhaps it might be a fear. And Linda's face in this respect was
the true reflex of her character. She lived with her aunt a quiet,
industrious, sober life, striving to be obedient, striving to be
religious with the religion of her aunt. She had almost brought
herself to believe that it was good for her heart to be crushed. She
had quite brought herself to wish to believe it. She had within her
heart no desire for open rebellion against domestic authority. The
world was a dangerous, bad world, in which men were dust and women
something lower than dust. She would tell herself so very often, and
strive to believe herself when she did so. But, for all this, there
was a yearning for something beyond her present life, for something
that should be of the world, worldly. When she heard profane music
she would long to dance. When she heard the girls laughing in the
public gardens she would long to stay and laugh with them. Pretty
ribbons and bright-coloured silks were a snare to her. When she
could shake out her curly locks in the retirement of her own little
chamber, she liked to feel them and to know that they were pretty.

But these were the wiles with which the devil catches the souls of
women, and there were times when she believed that the devil was
making an especial struggle to possess himself of her. There were
moments in which she almost thought that the devil would succeed,
and that, perhaps, it was but of little use for her to carry on any
longer the futile contest. Would it not be pleasant to give up the
contest, and to laugh and talk and shout and be merry, to dance, and
wear bright colours, and be gay in company with young men, as did the
other girls around her? As for those other girls, their elder friends
did not seem on their account to be specially in dread of Satan.
There was Fanny Heisse who lived close to them, who had been Linda's
friend when they went to school together. Fanny did just as she
pleased, was always talking with young men, wore the brightest
ribbons that the shops produced, was always dancing, seemed to be
bound by no strict rules on life; and yet everybody spoke well of
Fanny Heisse, and now Fanny was to be married to a young lawyer from
Augsburg. Could it be the fact that the devil had made sure of Fanny
Heisse? Linda had been very anxious to ask her aunt a question on
that subject, but had been afraid. Whenever she attemp