Walburga, who was of a nature inclined to melancholy, had for more than a year kept a skull in her bed-room, and before it she was wont to meditate sometimes for hours, until the ugly thing stole away the bloom from her cheek and drew a black mark under each of her eyes. Her appetite, too, began to fail; and ’twere not easy to say what might have happened if she had been living alone. But one morning, while she was plunged in one of her reveries before this death’s head, Moida approached, and, after kneeling beside her and saying a prayer—for Moida was a good girl, and quite as pious as Walburga, only in a different way—she reverently took the skull in her hands and said: “Now, dear friend, I think ’tis time to put this aside. ’Tis making a ghost of you. It has honeycombed you with scruples, and I am sure that your father-confessor would approve of the reformation which I am going to inaugurate. Therefore take one more good look at this eyeless, grinning object ere it disappears from your sight for ever.” These bold words so astonished Walburga that for about a minute she could not reply, and she turned to Moida with an expression which might have deterred anybody with less spirit and determination from proceeding further. But Moida—who, let us here remark, was a descendant of Andreas Hofer, the Tyrolese patriot—was not in the least frightened by the other’s flashing eyes. “I will use this skull with reverence,” she continued. “I promise you it shall be laid in consecrated ground; if necessary, with my own hands I’ll bury it in God’s-acre. But here in this room it shall be no more.” “Well, I declare!” exclaimed Walburga, presently bursting into a laugh, “you are the dearest, sauciest girl I ever met.” “Then say I may do it,” went on Moida. “For, although I am very determined, yet I prefer not to be too great a despot and carry the skull off absolutely against your will.” “Well, let me bury it myself,” answered Walburga. “Agreed! But I’ll accompany you to God’s-acre; for I know one of the grave-diggers, and before another hour this poor old head shall be resting in peace underground.” So the skull was buried, after which Walburga’s cheeks recovered a good deal of their bloom. And now, while she and her friend are enjoying themselves in the open air this mild spring day, she looks more sprightly than we have ever seen her before. “Pray tell me, Moida,” said Walburga, after they had gone round the lake and were on their way home, “what is Ulrich doing at present? You had a letter from him this morning, had you not?” “Oh! yes,” answered the other, her ever-bright countenance growing brighter. “The dear fellow is in the Innthal,[45] where he means to make a sketch of the home of his ancestors.” “Dear, sweet spot!” murmured Walburga.