As she now turns round, having reached the end of the long walk, and is coming up again in the pale light of the autumnal evening, she can be better seen than before. How graceful and light her step is! How delicately slender her figure appears as she now draws the silk shawl closer around her sloping shoulders and wraps it around her arms! How prettily the black fichu which she has tied over her head, fastening it under the chin, frames the lovely oval of her fair face! And how much more clearly the expression of goodness of heart, which always made the handsome face so attractive, strikes the observer now! And yet the soft brown eyes look so much graver! the charming mouth, whose red lips formerly looked as if they were made only to kiss and to laugh, is now firm and resolute. It looks as if the beautiful and noble psyche of the woman had freed itself of all that formerly held it in chains, and was now free from the mists of passionate thoughts, lighting up the sweet, kindly face in all its nobility and beauty as the chaste light of the moon lights up a soft, warm summer night. What is she thinking of as she now comes slowly down the walk, her eyes fixed upon the ground? First of all, probably, of her son, who is recovering his full rosy cheeks, and growing up so strong and so hearty, just as Doctor Birkenhain has predicted. She has written to Doctor Birkenhain to-day to congratulate him and herself on the fulfilment of his prophecy. Then as she passes a little niche in the hedge where a low bench is still leaning against a small table--it must have escaped the eyes of old Baumann--she stops for a moment. On this bench she sat on that eventful summer afternoon with Oswald, when they had watched two white butterflies who were hovering on their delicate wings over the flower forests of the parterre and caught each other and chased each other and then rose into the blue ether, embracing each other, then parting again to flutter hither and thither into the green wilderness. "Will those butterflies ever meet again in life?" she had asked Oswald; and he had answered: "That may happen, but whether they meet with the same delight, that is another question." She had not seen Oswald again since the first night when she left for Fichtenau. If she should meet him again! She started at the idea, for she felt that she wished it. Had she not loved him very, very much? Had she not been unspeakably happy with him? But no! Prudence and pride commanded her to forget the faithless man who knew only how to conquer but not how to preserve his conquests.