n ascended higher and higher, and at last
the light flooded the room with its golden glow.

Gunther went out and brought a tonic draught for Irma. It revived and
refreshed her.

"I know that I am about to die," she said in a clear voice, "and I am
happy that I have lived in consciousness and can die in consciousness."

She gave her journal to Gunther and told him that the wish she had
there expressed, in relation to her place of burial, need not be
regarded; that the uncle knew which had been her favorite spot, and
that she wished to be buried there, with nothing to mark her grave.

Gunther had, before this, said that he had held many a dying hand in
his--he had never sat by a death-bed like that of Irma's.

CHAPTER XVII.

"I knew it! I felt it must come!" cried Walpurga when Franz brought the
news of Irma's illness. "I knew she'd never come back!" she repeated
again and again, weeping, wringing her hands, and praying by turns.

"That won't help any," said Hansei, laying his hand on her shoulder.
"Get up; you're not like this at other times. Come, may be it isn't so
bad after all; and even if it should be, this is no time to cry and
weep; we must do all that can be done."

"What can I do? What shall I do?" said Walpurga, turning her tearful
face to Hansei.

He helped her up and said:

"Franz says there's a doctor up there, who has a medicine chest with
him. And now let's eat something and then go up to her."

"Oh dear Lord, I can't walk three steps; I feel as if my limbs were
broken."

"Then you'd better stay here and I'll go up."

"Would you leave me here alone? What am I to do, then?"

"I don't know what. Go to bed; perhaps you can sleep."

"I don't want to go to bed; I don't want to sleep; I don't want
anything. I'll go along, too, and, if I die on the way, I can't help
it."

"Don't talk so! you wrong me and the children when you do," Hansei was
about to say, but he made a rapid movement, as if to repress the words.
"There's no need of saying that," thought he; "when women, filled with
pity for themselves, begin to complain of their lot, they don't know
what they say."

Hansei brought his wife her best clothes, for she was so agitated that
she scarcely knew where they were, or how to put them on. Hansei proved
quite a clever valet.

"Now you must put your shoes on yourself," said he, at last.

Walpurga could not help smiling through her tears. It was not un