Both parents were heroic, but whilst the unhappy mother bore each fresh blow in perfect silence, the father’s resignation even took the form of outer cheerfulness, that did not fail him now, when Marie, his darling, was being torn from him. “Death,” Herr von Bibra was accustomed to say, “should be a dear friend to me; he has been such a frequent visitor in my house!” All through that winter I wrote each day to my dear Marie. Then towards the end of February came worse news, that she was suffering from frightful headaches, ending in delirium. This lasted a whole fortnight, during which she was always fancying she saw me, and calling me by name. “Ah! she was there, my Lisi!” she would cry; “if we could but die, all of us, together, and fly up to heaven where the others are waiting for us!” And the gates of Paradise seemed to be already open to her, for she told of all the wonders she saw, its undimmed glories, and the flowers that never fade--and these raptures were reflected in her face. The last thing I sent her was a little night-lamp in biscuit-china, like a tiny chapel, so delicate and fragile. And one night Baron Bibra wrote me these words:--“The little lamp, whose soft light seems to plunge our souls in an atmosphere of prayer and holiness, sheds its gentle rays over my child’s pale still face, as if whispering to her the loving thoughts of her who sent it!” The tears rise once more to my eyes, as I write this. As if the five-and-forty years that have passed since that day counted for nothing! It was a heartbreaking meeting with the poor father, when shortly after this he came to see us in Baden; and terrible again was the return to Neuwied, to find their house desolate, and the poor bereaved mother, more Niobe-like than ever, and her big velvety eyes still strained and tearless! Meantime--hardest ordeal of all I went through--during that winter of anxiety and anguish I had been obliged to go to my first ball, in order that my father should for once see me dance. It was with endless care and precautions that the short journey to Karlsruhe was undertaken, and once there, everything that friendship could do for him was done, by those truest and best of friends, the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Baden. Notwithstanding all their care, he of course coughed for the rest of the night--but--he had had his wish--he had seen his daughter at her first ball! And my feet felt like lead--were as heavy as my heart, which ached so that I knew not how to smile and look well pleased, and enter fittingly into the amiable small-talk of my partners. How unhappy I was, and how the old unhappiness comes over me once more, as I write this! For grief and joy are both eternal, but grief so much more violent in its nature, that did we but rightly consider it, our one aim should be, to bring some joy into each other’s lives, to sweeten the bitterness that must needs be the portion of all. It was the very violence of my grief that helped me