re; none would follow; every one would be where she was, every
one would enjoy her presence for the last time. Men and women and little
boys--there was not one unmoved; least of all to be consoled were the
girls, who felt most immediately what they had lost.

Nanny was not present; it had been thought better not to allow it, and
they had kept secret from her the day and the hour of the funeral. She
was at her parents' house, closely watched, in a room looking toward the
garden. But when she heard the bells tolling, she knew too well what
they meant; and her attendant having left her out of curiosity to see
the funeral, she escaped out of the window into a passage, and from
thence, finding all the doors locked, into an upper open loft. At this
moment the funeral was passing through the village, which had been all
freshly strewed with leaves. Nanny saw her mistress plainly close below
her, more plainly, more entirely, than any one in the procession
underneath; she appeared to be lifted above the earth, borne as it were
on clouds or waves, and the girl fancied she was making signs to her;
her senses swam, she tottered, swayed herself for a moment on the edge,
and fell to the ground. The crowd drew asunder on all sides with a cry
of horror. In the tumult and confusion, the bearers were obliged to set
down the coffin; the girl lay close by it; it seemed as if every limb
was broken. They lifted her up, and by accident or providentially she
was allowed to lean over the body; she appeared, indeed, to be
endeavoring, with what remained to her of life, to reach her beloved
mistress. Scarcely, however, had the loosely hanging limbs touched
Ottilie's robe, and the powerless finger rested on the folded hands,
than the girl started up, and first raising her arms and eyes toward
heaven, flung herself down upon her knees before the coffin, and gazed
with passionate devotion at her mistress.

At last she sprang, as if inspired, from off the ground, and cried with
a voice of ecstasy: "Yes, she has forgiven me; what no man, what I
myself could never have forgiven. God forgives me through her look, her
motion, her lips.

"Now she is lying again so still and quiet, but you saw how she raised
herself up, and unfolded her hands and blessed me, and how kindly she
looked at me. You all heard, you can witness that she said to me: 'You
are forgiven.' I am not a murderess any more. She has forgiven me. God
has forgiven me, and no one may now say