She had indeed no feeling for chimeras with or without the adjective, no feeling for moral and social subtleties, no feeling for honourable traditional superstitions, for fine inherited weaknesses and illusions, no feeling for all that constitute the moral supports of a caste, although they cannot be expressed in words or grasped with the hand. How could this woman comprehend Fritz, Fritz who had grown up with chimeras, who had made playmates of them in the nursery? He shrugged his shoulders and was silent. Just then the wailing of a weak childish voice fell upon the warm evening air. Fritz hurried forward; in front of the small arbour, with his little son in her lap, sat an old woman; it was old Miller, his nurse in childhood, who had at last found an asylum in a corner of his house. "The little fellow is crying for his father," she said while the boy smiling through his tears stretched out his tiny arms. "The Herr Count ought not to spoil him so." "Never mind that, Miller," Fritz said taking the child in his arms. "Oh, my pale darling, what should we do without each other, hey?" Fifteen minutes afterwards Fritz was sitting on the edge of a small bed on which his boy was kneeling with folded hands, looking in his snowy night-gown, that fell in straight folds about him, like a veritable Luca della Robbia. "Come, Franzi, have you forgotten your prayer?" "In my small bed I lay me here, I pray Thee dearest Lord be near, About me clasp Thy loving arm, And shelter me and keep me warm." the child murmured sleepily, then offered his lips to his father and lay down. It was a childish prayer--but Fritz learned it at his mother's knee from her dear lips--reason enough for teaching it to his son. And until the little man fell asleep, his hand under his cheek, Fritz still sat on the edge of the bed and dreamed. CHAPTER VIII. Yes, of a truth, Fritz had grown up with chimeras; they had been his playmates, born and bred and domesticated in Schneeburg. To them it was due that Fritz had married a second-rate actress; that Fritz, under all the most distressing circumstances, had still suffered from homesickness, and had taken refuge 'at home;' that he had always possessed a character not merely respectable, but thoroughly noble; never forfeiting the esteem of his equals although stricken from their visiting lists; and that, when in fulness of time he should make ready for the final journey, he might boldly face these very chimeras and say: "Often have I sinned against myself, and my own best happiness, but never, never against you; come therefore and help me to die."