*

To be killed by lightning, must surely be the most beautiful death of
all. On a lovely summer's day, to be suddenly struck down by the great
marksman!

*

I have seen a man who moves in the polite world. He is a musician;
young, good-looking, lively, and with delicate, well-cared-for hands.
The storm had overtaken him, and he passed the night in our farmhouse.
While here, he told us:

"I am already blind in this eye, and my physician tells me that I shall
lose the other in less than a year, and so I have determined to see the
great, vast, beautiful world. He who has not seen the Alps, does not
know how beautiful our earth is. And so I take it up within me once
more. I fix the sun, the mountains, the forests, the meads, the
streams, the lakes and, above all, the human face, in my memory. Yes,
child," said he to me, "I shall preserve my memory of your face, for
you are the loveliest peasant girl I have ever seen. I shall learn your
face by heart, just as I have learnt poems, so that I may repeat them
to myself and call them back to me when darkness and solitude close in
around me."

I felt quite constrained, but he was exceedingly cheerful. Now and
then, he cast a curious glance at the bandage over my brow. What may he
have thought of it?

I should like to have told him that I had once, at Gunther's house,
sung a song of his, but he did not mention Gunther's name.

I cannot find words to describe the impression that this handsome young
man made upon me. He seemed so full of power, and without the least
trace of weakly sensibility. He comes from the north, and possesses
somewhat of the austere beauty of the northern races. He has breathed
the salt sea air, and that is what makes him so sturdy, as they call it
there. Such natures impress and arouse me; one cannot remain languid,
brooding or self-complacent, while in his society.

Oh, what cannot a strong will do! How the human mind wrestles with the
powers of nature and conquers them!

*

To-day, I have wept for the first time since the grandmother's death. I
now feel light and free again.

The young musician has left, and I could hear him sing while on his way
down the valley.

If I could still be aught to another human being--I could feel doubly
as kind toward one who could neither see my brow, nor praise my beauty.

It is over--

What strange sha