In the Fire of the Forge — Volume 05 by Georg Ebers
page 8 of 60 (13%)
page 8 of 60 (13%)
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obstacles life might place in her pathway, Els would pursue the right
course even without counsel and guidance. But Eva needed her love and care so much just now, and when the sufferer gave her older daughter also a tender glance and vainly strove to falter a few words of thanks, Els herself replaced in Eva's the hand which her mother had withdrawn. Fran Maria nodded gently to Els, as if asking her sensible elder daughter to watch over her forsaken sister in her place. Then her eyes again sought her husband, but the priest, to whom she had just confessed, approached her instead. After the holy man had performed the duties of his office, she again turned her head toward Eva. It seemed as though she was feasting her eyes on her daughter's charms. Meanwhile she strove to utter what more she desired to say, but the bystanders understood only the words--they were her last: "We thought--should be untouched--But now Heaven----" Here she paused and, after closing her eyes for a time, went on in a lower but perfectly distinct tone: "You are good--I hope--the forge-fire of life--it is fortunate for you The heart and its demands The hap--pi --ness--which it--gave--me---- It ought--it must--you, too----" Whilst speaking she had again glanced towards her husband, then at the Abbess Kunigunde, who knelt beside him, and as the abbess met the look she thought, "She is entrusting the child to me, and desires Eva to be happy as one of us and the fairest of the brides of Heaven!" Ernst Ortlieb, wholly overpowered by the deepest grief, was far from enquiring into the meaning of these last words of his beloved dying wife. |
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