Thrown together as we were by circumstances, and with so much that was sympathetic in our natures, we were drawn yet closer by the hand of Fate, by a certain similarity in the fortunes--or rather in the ill-fortune that befell our families. There is perhaps no stronger tie than that which springs from an affliction borne in common, and the friendship that united Marie von Bibra and myself, founded on the sorrows we had shared, but little resembled that which ordinarily exists between girls of our age. Young as she was, and naturally light-hearted, she had known much sorrow. After the baby-sister, and the little brother whom she loved so well, she was fated to see the only remaining one, Berthold, called away one springtime in the bloom and pride of youth. It was on a cold dull May day--how unlike the May mornings of poetry and legend!--that I stood with her beside the coffin in which her brother had just been laid, and together we afterwards wove the garlands that went with him to the grave. And in all the anguish of the years of Otto’s martyrdom it was she who supported and comforted me, when the load of sorrow would otherwise have seemed too heavy to be borne. These were no weak, no ordinary ties, that bound our souls together, and the fellowship of sorrow rests on a firmer basis than any other fraternity. But our joys were in common too, and how much increased, by being shared! Thus we grew up together, in joy and sorrow, until the day when, coming from poor Otto’s deathbed, Baron Bibra said, as he wrung my father’s hand, “Before the year is out, another of my dear children will lie under the earth!”--“Yes, yes,” he continued, in answer to his friend’s look of horror and amazement, “she coughs just like Berthold,--it is only the beginning, but I know the tone,--she too must go!” It was only too true. Marie, who was just sixteen, was taken away to the sea by her parents; but scarcely six months later, a message was brought me by a dear and trusted friend, to prepare me for the shock of seeing her again. Far from deriving any benefit from the sea-air, she had come back with inflammation of the lungs, and already all hope was given up. My one wish was to fly to her bedside; but even then I had to wait some days to see her, till she had rallied a little and had strength to talk to me. Ah! how sad was that meeting! Death was in her face, in the hectic flush on her cheeks, in the unnatural brilliancy of her eyes, in the transparent whiteness of her hands, as she stretched them towards me, lying in bed, with the magnificent tresses of her fair silky hair, that usually crowned her head like an aureole, hanging in two heavy braids across the pillow. She could not raise her voice above a whisper as she told me: “I thought I should die, while we were away, at Scheveningen! Oh! Lisi,--I did not want to die!”