ike green wood,
weep at one end, and burn at the other; but even good may be carried to
excess, and this utter surrender of yourself to grief is as contrary to
reason as it is to the word of God."

"How can I help it?" said Althea, with calm; and patient sorrow: "How
can I help it, when all that surrounds me is an inexhaustible source of
tears? Do I see my husband's sword hanging against the wall, I must
weep--do I hear his war-horse neighing in the stable, I must weep--does
my sight fall upon this fatherless child alas!"--tears stifled her
words.

"A child who will soon be motherless too," exclaimed her uncle, "if you
go on thus destroying your health by such unchristian want of
fortitude. Every thing has its season; your year of widowhood is past,
and as you are no longer entitled to wear black, so your mind too must
cast off the mourning in which it has been too closely enveloped, and
you must begin again to live for the world, to which, after all, you
belong. If you were a papist, you might bury your grief in a cloister,
for ought I should care; but that won't do now; and, besides, you have
important and sacred duties upon you. The property that you have to
preserve for the son of a beloved husband requires a stout protector in
these stormy times. A woman's bringing up, too, will not be sufficient
for him, and you'll not like to let him go from you so soon; therefore
you must give him a father who, with all love and earnestness, will
make an honourable knight out of him. In a word, you must marry again."

"Spare me such language, uncle," cried Althea, rising and putting down
the child.

But with gentle violence he forced her back into the chair again,
saying, "It becomes youth to listen to the well-meant admonitions of
age, even though it should not happen to relish them: I keep to my
position. You least of all have occasion to complain of the want of
wooers. There is Hans Hund of Ingersdorf, Adam von Schweinicher of
Wenigmoknau; then there is your own cousin: all of whom would with
pleasure break their necks for a kind look from you, and are besides
brave knights and in good circumstances."

"How can you, even in jest, propose to sacrifice me to these rude
companions, who have no enjoyment except in hunting, gambling,
drinking, and quarrelling; and who would only make me miss so much the
more painfully the mild pious disposition of my Henry?"

"Why to be sure our knights are somewhat tough and knotty, but so