es of death, of a child's death, would rise up
in the midst of their joy, and their gladness suddenly ended in a heavy
sigh. They would be at the height of enchantment, kissing and hugging
the child and laughing aloud, they would be singing to it and romping
with it, everything else would be forgotten. Then, without wishing to do
so, they would suddenly remember that not so long ago it was another
child, also a girl, that went off into just the same silvery little
bursts of laughter--and now, where is it?--dead! O how it goes through
the heart! The parents turn pale in the midst of their merrymaking, the
mother's eyes fill with tears, and the father's head droops.

"Who knows?" sighs Dobe, looking at their little laughing Dvorehle. "Who
knows?"

Ginzburg understands the meaning of her question and is silent, because
he is afraid to say anything in reply.

It seems to me that parents who have buried their first-born can never
be really happy again.

So Dvorehle's first birthday was allowed to pass as it were unnoticed.
When it came to her second, it was nearly the same thing, only Dobe
said, "Ginzburg, when our daughter is three years old, then we will have
great rejoicings!"

They waited for the day with trembling hearts. Their child's third year
was full of terror for them, because their eldest-born had died in her
third year, and they felt as though it must be the most dangerous one
for their second child.

A dreadful conviction began to haunt them both, only they were afraid to
confess it one to the other. This conviction, this fixed idea of theirs,
was that when Dvorehle reached the age of their eldest child when it
died, Death would once more call their household to mind.

Dvorehle grew to be two years and eight months old. O it was a terrible
time! And--and the child fell ill, with inflammation of the lungs, just
like the other one.

O pictures that arose and stood before the parents! O terror, O
calamity! They were free-thinkers, the Ginzburgs, and if any one had
told them that they were not free from what they called superstition,
that the belief in a Higher Power beyond our understanding still had a
root in their being, if you had spoken thus to Ginzburg or to his wife,
they would have laughed at you, both of them, out of the depths of a
full heart and with laughter more serious than many another's words. But
what happened now is wonderful to tell.

Dobe, sitting by the sick child's cot, began to spe