er. Frau Rauchfuss knelt by the bed in
grief and fear. What was she to do? She simply did not know. To whom
could she commend her poor little girl? Now that she had acquired
certainty about herself, she felt for the first time her weakness and
helplessness. At the physician's words a heavy burden had fallen upon
her which she could not shake off.

As the darkness slowly crept into the room, she still knelt there,
holding her child's hand and sadly racking her brains. Finally she
undressed the child, who was now fast asleep, and herself lay down to
rest.

She had the feeling that she was only a guest in her own house. Anguish
came over her, and fear; the weight on her heart was as though she were
buried for all eternity under a huge gloomy mountain. Plans of all
sorts chased each other feverishly through her mind. What could she do?
She thought of going to all the people she knew, whom she felt to be
kind-hearted and begging them to watch over her child; to the Sperbers,
her neighbors, to old Frau Kummerfelden who had a sewing-school in
Weimar, to her pastor. She found few, as she passed them in review for
qualities of heart and head, of whom she could be sure that they would
not soon forget her prayer.

At last she grew weary of thinking and planning, and nestled down upon
the bosom of her weariness as in her mother's arms. A mournful old hymn
that she had been used to sing went through her head before she fell
asleep:

A stranger and a pilgrim
On this terrestrial sphere,
Be peace, O Lord, my portion
While yet I tarry here.

Let me not fix my dwelling
Here on a foreign shore:
The heart to earth is fettered
That seeks of gain a store.

I'll wear but pilgrim's clothing,
O Lord, while here I stay;
For all our cherished treasures
The winds must bear away.

The sun of every mortal
Goes down at last in night,
And flown before you taste it
Is every dear delight.

The next day, in the bright summer evening light, Frau Rauchfuss
took her child by the hand, and they went through the garden and passed
out of a little gate to a narrow path that ran through swelling, sunny
fields up to the wood; then they rambled slowly under the trees.

Little Beate clung close to her mother, for this was a rare treat to