symbol of creation and had herself
been created anew.

Now come, ye days that are still left me, be ye long or short!--Where
and with whom I may have to spend them, it matters not; for I am free!
I am saved!

All that I now do is only preparation for the journey. The hour draws
near and, be it early or late, I am prepared for it. I have lived!

"Why, Irmgard, how strange you look!" exclaimed Gundel, coming out of
the hut, and carrying the milk-pail on her head. "Dear me, what a
forehead you've got, so white and so beautiful! Oh, how beautiful you
are! I never saw so smooth and beautiful a forehead before!"

Irma accepted a glass of milk from Gundel, and then tucked up her dress
and went out into the woods. It was not until high noon that she
returned to the cottage. During the whole day, she had scarcely uttered
a word.

In the cottage, she found the little pitchman standing before her
table, and arranging a great heap of aromatic herbs and roots.

"Just look," he cried, "I've found something already. Yes, I know a
thing or two. I've been gathering clover and mountain parsley for the
apothecary. I know everything growing hereabouts that they can use, and
many a time has my sister said: 'In the spring everything's sweet and
good; and wherever the poison lies, it takes the summer heat to bring
it out.' Oh, she was a clever one! Many a time she's said: 'The best
things grow up among the clouds.'"

After a short pause, he began again:

"Gundel's right; I must say, I didn't think you were so handsome. But,
somehow, you don't look healthy; you must eat more; why, you hardly eat
anything."

A grateful smile was Irma only reply.

"Do you know what I'd like to have been?"

"What?"

"Your father."

Irma answered him with a silent inclination of the head. Her father's
spirit had been invoked, and it seemed as if he were speaking to her
through the lips of this poor, simple-minded man, who continued:

"God forgive me, but I can't help feeling, once in a while, as if you
had dropped down from heaven, and had neither father nor mother; and
to-day you look so weak that my eyes fill with tears whenever I look at
you. Now, do eat a bit!"

He went on chattering as confusedly as if he had been drinking too
much, but the refrain was always the same: "Now do eat something!"

To please the good old man, Irma forced herself to do so.

CHAPTER IX.

The days were bright and cheerful