daughter was the darling of both father and brother, who were ready
to do anything to gratify the girl's sick fancies, and hailed with
delight her pleasure in her new attendant. Old Ursel was at first
rather envious and contemptuous of the childish, fragile stranger,
but her gentleness disarmed the old woman; and, when it was plain
that the young lady's sufferings were greatly lessened by tender
care, dislike gave way to attachment, and there was little more
murmuring at the menial services that were needed by the two maidens,
even when Ermentrude's feeble fancies, or Christina's views of dainty
propriety, rendered them more onerous than before. She was even
heard to rejoice that some Christian care and tenderness had at last
reached her poor neglected child.

It was well for Christina that she had such an ally. The poor child
never crept down stairs to the dinner or supper, to fetch food for
Ermentrude, or water for herself, without a trembling and shrinking
of heart and nerves. Her father's authority guarded her from rude
actions, but from rough tongues he neither could nor would guard her,
nor understand that what to some would have been a compliment seemed
to her an alarming insult; and her chief safeguard lay in her own
insignificance and want of attraction, and still more in the modesty
that concealed her terror at rude jests sufficiently to prevent
frightening her from becoming an entertainment.

Her father, whom she looked on as a cultivated person in comparison
with the rest of the world, did his best for her after his own views,
and gradually brought her all the properties she had left at the
Kohler's hut. Therewith she made a great difference in the aspect of
the chamber, under the full sanction of the lords of the castle.
Wolf, deer, and sheep skins abounded; and with these, assisted by her