to her heart. She gave the preference to the flowers which had been her
mother's favourites, but the others were also used. With a light hand
and a delicate appreciation of harmony and beauty she interwove the
children of the forest with those of the garden. She could not be
satisfied till every one was in the right place.

Countess Cordula had insisted upon attending the consecration, but she
had not known who cared for its adornment. Yet when she stood in the
church by the side of the open coffin she gazed long at the gentle face
of the quiet sufferer, charming even in death, who on her bright couch
seemed dreaming in a light slumber. At last she whispered to Els: "How
wonderfully beautiful! Did you arrange it?"

The latter shook her head, but Cordula added, as if soliloquising: "It
seems as though the hands of the Madonna herself had adorned a sleeping
saint with garden flowers, and child-angels had scattered over her the
blossoms of the forest."

Then Els, who hitherto had refused to talk in this place and this solemn
hour, broke her silence and briefly told Cordula who had artistically and
lovingly adorned her mother.

"Eva?" repeated the countess, as if surprised, gazing at her friend's
younger sister who, as the music of the organ and the alternate chanting
had just begun, had already risen from her knees. Cordula felt
spellbound, for the young girl looked as fresh as a May rose and so
touchingly beautiful in the deep, earnest devotion which filled her whole
being, and the white purity of her mourning robes, that the countess did
not understand how she could ever have disliked her. Eva, with her up
lifted eyes, seemed to be gazing directly into the open heavens.