"And at the same moment I heard behind me a glad cry, saw him rush past me and clasp her tottering form in his arms. "'Thank God, now I have you!' That was the last I heard; then I fled to my room as if pursued by furies, locked and bolted everything, and wept, wept bitterly. * * * * * "Over the days that now followed, with their crushing blows of fate, with their lingering sorrow, I will pass with rapid stride. In them I became matured: I became a woman. "Eight months after that night papa was carried home on a waggon-rack. He had fallen from his horse and sustained grave internal injuries. Three days later he died. In the misery that now beset the household, I was the only one who kept a clear head. Martha broke down feebly, and mama--oh, our poor dear mama! She had been sitting for so many years comfortably and placidly in the chimney-corner, knitting stockings and chewing fruit-jujubes the while, that she would not and could not realise that it must be different now. She spoke not a single word, she hardly shed a tear, but internally the sore spread, and even had the brain fever, which attacked her four weeks later, spared her, her sorrow would still have broken her heart. "There, now, those two lay in the churchyard, and we two orphans were left helpless in our desolate home, and waited for the time when we should be driven forth. I, for my part, knew which way my path lay, and knew that the future would have nothing to offer me but the hard bread of service; I did not despair and did not quarrel with my fate. I knew that I possessed sufficient strength and pride to hold my own even among strangers, but it was for Martha--who now less than ever could dispense with love and consolation--that I trembled. "Her marriage still lay in the far distance; Robert must not let her wait much longer or she might easily waste away in her misery and one morning silently die out like a little lamp in which the oil is consumed. "I was not deceived in him. To the funerals he had not been able to come; but his words of consolation had been there at all times, and had helped Martha over the most trying hours. For me, too, there was sometimes a crumb of comfort, and I eagerly seized upon it like one starving. "One day he himself arrived. 'Now I have come to fetch you home,' he cried out to Martha. She sank upon his breast and there wept her fill. The happy creature! I meanwhile crept away into the darkest arbour, and wondered whether my heart would ever find a home prepared for it, where it might take refuge in hours of trouble or hours of happiness! I very well felt that these were idle dreams, for the only place in the world--in short, a feeling of defiance awoke within me, of bitterness so great, so galling to my whole nature, that I harshly and gloomily fled my dear ones' embrace, and grew cold and reserved in solitary sadness.