terest sadness, as she rose from her seat, "my hour is arrived, and I
must leave you. Ask me not why. I must go as I have come, in silence and
mystery. But oh! I beseech you, deem me not ungrateful. I had not
quitted you without a last farewell--a last assurance that all your
gentle charities are engraven here, upon my heart for ever."

"Magdalena!" again exclaimed Gottlob, still astonished at this
unexpected announcement, "thou leavest me thus abruptly?"

"Again, I pray you, gentle Master," said the old woman sobbing, "think
me not unkind or cold. The will of another is far stronger than my own.
The will of God is above all. We shall meet no more on earth, young man;
at least I fear so: my destiny leads me from the world. But my prayers
shall be offered up, morning and evening, at my noontide meal as at my
lying down; at all times, and in all places, whenever it shall please
Heaven to hear them, for my generous benefactor."

"But you must not quit me thus," said the young man--"thus unassisted,
in penury and want. I have but little, it is true, but that little shall
be thine. What matter the gauds I thought to purchase? the dainty plume
to deck my cap?" Still, in spite of himself, an unconscious sigh broke,
as he spoke, from the breast of "Gentle Gottlob," at the anticipated
renunciation of the braveries that were to give him a price in the eye
of the fair object of his adoration. "Can my poor savings be better
bestowed than upon thee?"

"I need not thy generous sacrifice, kind youth," replied Magdalena. "The
pilgrim lacketh nothing in a Christian land; and soon I shall be beyond
all want."

"Oh! speak not thus sadly," said Gottlob, taking her hand.

"I meant it not so sadly as you deem. I am resigned still to live on,
until it please God to release me from this world of sin and sorrow,
more easily resigned and with a calmer spirit, since, through the mist
of solitary darkness around me, I see a way of hope that shines not upon
me, but upon the bright forms most dear to me."

"What meanest thou, Magdalena?" cried the young man.

"Strive not to comprehend me," said the old woman in a more subdued
tone--"I would not foster vain delusions;" and, as if to remove the
impression of what she had said from Gottlob's mind, she hastily added,
"You have not seen the Prince at Saaleck?"

"Alas, no!" replied the young artist. "My noble patron had already left
the castle with a small retinue, and I was too late to meet him.