WILHELMINE walked on for some twenty minutes, the cold morning air bringing a bright colour to her cheeks and a sparkle to her eyes. Her gait was one of her greatest charms; it never seemed hurried, and yet the long, even steps carried her swiftly onwards. There was vigorous elasticity in her tread; she walked freely and with perfectly assured balance, her shoulders thrown back and head erect. It was in a measure this walk of hers which caused the townsfolk to call her 'the proud hussy,' though they were careful not to let her hear their disparaging remarks, for they feared the compelling power of her strange eyes. It was whispered that it was dangerous to offend her. 'Though, of course,' they declared, 'we do not really believe in witchcraft and such Popish abominations, still it is certainly true that Hans Frisch, the blacksmith's child, who threw a snowball at her last winter and had the misfortune to hit her on the face, went home, took to his bed, and nearly died of convulsions.' Of this talk Wilhelmine was unaware, though, knowing the effect of her eyes upon people, she would often voluntarily narrow her lids, causing the pupils to contract. She practised this feat before the mirror, but she was careful not to do so at night, for it gave her an uncanny feeling, and she sometimes succeeded in frightening herself, as she did others. That cold morning, while she walked, there was none of all this in her face; she was merely a gloriously healthy young being rejoicing simply and naturally in the morning freshness and in the pulsing of the blood in her veins. She was feeling the elation of health, and it chased away her morbid fancies in spite of the dreariness of the wet fields around her. Indeed, it needed the buoyancy of youth to counteract the profound melancholy of the Mecklemburg lake-country in winter. The enormous flat fields stretching away in unbroken monotony, the road very straight, with a division of colour in the middle where the summer road marched with the winter road; the former merely a soaking mud-bog, the latter hard and stony. On each side of the highway a line of apple and pear trees lifted gaunt twisted arms to the leaden sky, as though in protest against the sullen aspect of the world. Wilhelmine paused and looked about her. The snow was surely coming; there was the hush in the air which precedes a snowstorm, and she was some distance from home. She strained her eyes westward and endeavoured to catch a glimpse of the lake towards which she was journeying, but she could see nothing save the drenched fields, and in the dim distance the dark line of fir woods. She turned her face homewards and began to walk with a quickened step. The cold air had made her hungry; she had only partaken of a lump of black bread and a glass of milk, and it was now late in the morning. She felt a soft cold touch on her cheek, the first snowflake of the gathering storm. At first the snowflakes only added to the slush on