l draw forth the sorrow from your
heart, and bear it, as it bore Him who took upon Himself the sorrow of
the whole world!" She kissed it with pious devotion, and then handed it
to Otto.

The whole became clear to him. He recollected how in his boyish
wantonness he had caused Heinrich's tricks to miscarry, which occasioned
much pleasure to the spectators, but in Heinrich displeasure: they soon
again became friends, and Otto recognized in him the merry weaver of the
manufactory, as he called his former abode. They were alone, Otto asked
whether he did not remember his name: Heinrich shook his head. Then Otto
uncovered his shoulder, bade him read the branded letters, and heard the
unhappy interpretation which gave the death-blow to his gayety. Heinrich
must have seen what an impression his words made upon the boy: he gained
through them an opportunity of avenging himself, and at the same time
of bringing himself again into repute: as a sorcerer. He had tamed him,
whispered he to the old woman,--he had tamed the boy with a single word.
At any future wantonness of Otto's, gravity and terror would immediately
return should any one ask him, What word did the German Heinrich whisper
into thy ear? "Only ask him," had Heinrich said.

In a perfectly natural manner there lay, truly, enchantment in
Heinrich's words, even although it were not that enchantment which the
superstition of the old woman would have signified. A revelation of
the connection of affairs would have removed her doubts, but here an
explanation was impossible to Otto. He pressed her hand, besought her to
be calm; no sorrow lay heavy on his heart, except the loss of his dear
grandfather.

"Every evening have I named your name it my prayers," said the old
grandmother. "Each time when the harbingers of bad weather showed
themselves, and my sons were on the sea, so that we hung out flags or
lighted beacons as signals, did I think of the words which had escaped
my lips, and which the wicked Heinrich had caught up; I feared lest our
Lord might cause my children to suffer for my injustice."

"Be calm, my dear old woman!" said Otto. "Keep for yourself the holy
cross, on the virtue of which you rely; may it remove each sorrow from
your own heart!"

"No, I am guilty of my own sorrow! yours has a stranger laid upon your
heart! Only the sorrow of the guiltless will the cross bear."

The beautiful sentiment which, unconsciously to her, lay in these words,
affected Otto