Once, however, she introduced me to a German lady, who was a recent convert and her intimate friend. She was a certain Madam de Strahlenheim, a very handsome woman who had lived a long while in Rome. Whilst these ladies talked together about a celebrated preacher, I studied, by the lamp-light, the portrait of Lucrezia, until I felt it my duty to put in a word. "What eyes!" I exclaimed; "her eyelids almost seem to move!" At this somewhat pretentious figure of speech which I ventured on to show myself to Madam Strahlenheim in the light of a connoisseur, she trembled with fear and hid her face in her handkerchief. "What is the matter, my dear?" said the Marquise. "Oh! nothing but what Monsieur said just now!..." We pressed her with questions, and when she said that my phrase had recalled a horrible story we compelled her to relate it. Here it is in a few words:-- Madam de Strahlenheim had a sister-in-law called Wilhelmina, who was betrothed to a young man from Westphalia, Julius de Katzenellenbogen, a volunteer in General Kleist's division. I am very sorry to have to repeat so many barbarous names, but extraordinary episodes never happen except to people with names which are difficult to pronounce. Julius was a charming fellow, full of patriotic feeling and love of metaphysics. He gave his portrait to Wilhelmina when he entered the army and she gave him hers, which he wore next his heart. They do this sort of thing in Germany. On the 13th of September, 1813, Wilhelmina was at Cassel. She was sitting in a room, about five o'clock in the afternoon, busy knitting with her mother and sister-in-law. While she worked she looked at her _fiancé's_ portrait, which was standing on a little table opposite to her. Suddenly she uttered a terrible cry, put her hand on her heart and fainted. They had the greatest difficulty in the world to bring her back to consciousness, and, as soon as she could speak, she said-- "Julius is dead! He has been killed!" She insisted that she had seen the portrait shut its eyes, and at the same instant that she had felt a terrible pain as though a red-hot iron had pierced her heart: her horror-struck countenance gave credence to her words.