heart. Thus little was the friendship of men worth, in the
which her childish mind had so happily believed. How many poor had her
father helped! "What would we do, without the Counsellor?" how often
had she heard these words from Counsellors, beggars, the healthy, the
sick--and now their deliverer sat in the Great Tower, and the people,
could laugh and chat, and the boys whistle that insupportable song
about the all beauteous Gabrielle. About her also they seemed not to
care, and yet they had ever smiled kindly on her as they called her the
pretty Lydia. Felix, he indeed would think of her, but then she had
seen him lying pale with a bleeding head on the stairs, as they tore
her away. Perhaps was he dead, perhaps he also lay in some prison. And
the Kurfuerst and his Princess, who always used to address her so
graciously, when she stood on one side to curtsey to them, could they
give her up under their very eyes to these men! She gazed sadly up
through her barred windows at the deep blue September sky, in which the
long silver summer threads waved about finally to be caught in the
bars. Till yet she had childishly imagined her father and herself to be
important items in the minds of their fellow citizens. Now it dawned
upon her, that not only she herself with her youthful beauty and her
cheerful smile, but that even her serious father with all his ability
and wisdom could be taken away from this bustle, and the people would
live on just the same as ever. With one blow were all the lights
extinguished, in which the world had to her unexperienced youth
formerly shone. The childish expression was gone from her face, one
single hour had stamped in its place the earnest look of experienced
womanhood. But there was nothing dark in this seriousness. Her gentle,
modest feelings had now obtained the victory over the bitterness of her
heart. "Hast thou not also," said she to herself, "made fun and noise,
sung and laughed in the Castle gardens without giving one single
thought to the poor prisoners languishing behind their iron bars? Could
any man rejoice in life for a single instant, if he were always
thinking of those to whom at that instant some wrong were happening
...? But for the future I will think about it. I will strive daily,
that as much happiness may be around me, as I can obtain by opposing
sorrow, I will take the part of all who may be innocent and defend
them, even if appearances be against them, and will tell them wh