As his blood, when he was on the road home, began to cool, he counted loss and gain, and found himself not ill contented with the balance; for he found, that except the comfort of having cool air fanned upon his soul in Purgatory after death, his smart amounted to nothing. He never more returned to Ordruff, but continued with the Count at Gleichen all his life, and was an eye-witness of the most incredible occurrence, that two ladies shared the love of one man without quarrelling or jealousy, and this even under one bed-tester! The fair Angelica continued childless, yet she loved and watched over her associate's children as if they had been her own, and divided with Ottilia the care of their education. In the trefoil of this happy marriage, she was the first leaf which faded away in the autumn of life. Countess Ottilia soon followed her; and the afflicted widower, now all too lonely in his large castle and wide bed, lingered but a few months longer. The firmly-established arrangement of these noble spouses in the marriage-bed through life, was maintained unaltered after their death. They rest all three in one grave, in front of the Gleichen Altar, in St. Peter's Church at Erfurt, on the Hill; where their place of sepulture is still to be seen, overlaid with a stone, on which the noble group are sculptured after the life. To the right lies the Countess Ottilia, with a mirror in her hand, the emblem of her praiseworthy prudence; on the left Angelica, adorned with a royal crown; and in the midst, the Count reposing on his coat-of-arms, the lion-leopard.[27] Their famous triple bedstead is still preserved as a relic in the old Castle; it stands in the room called the Junkernkammer, or Knight's Chamber; and a splinter of it, worn by way of busk in a lady's bodice, is said to have the virtue of dispelling every movement of jealousy from her heart. [27] A plate of this tombstone may be seen in Falkenstein's _Analecta Nordgaviensia_.--M. LUDWIG TIECK. THE FAIR-HAIRED ECKBERT.[28] In a district of the Harz dwelt a Knight, whose common designation in that quarter was the Fair-haired Eckbert. He was about forty years of age, scarcely of middle stature, and short light-coloured locks lay close and sleek round his pale and sunken countenance. He led a retired life, had never interfered in the feuds of his neighbours; indeed, beyond the outer wall of his castle he was seldom to be seen. His wife loved solitude as much as he; both seemed heartily attached to one another; only now and then they would lament that Heaven had not blessed their marriage with children.