brightened, and her heart grew lighter as she said to herself:

"I promised Peter to treat them as if they were my own, and I will fulfil
the duties I have undertaken." Full of joyous excitement, she entered
the sick-room, hastily closing the door behind her. Doctor Bontius
looked at her with a reproving glance, and Barbara said:

"Gently, gently! Bessie is just sleeping a little." Maria approached
the bed, but the physician waved her back, saying:

"Have you had the purple-fever?"

"No."

"Then you ought not to enter this room again. No other help is needed
where Frau Barbara nurses."

The burgomaster's wife made no reply, and returned to the entry. Her
heart was so heavy, so unutterably heavy. She felt like a stranger in
her husband's house. Some impulse urged her to go out of doors, and as
she wrapped her mantle around her and went downstairs, the smell of
leather rising from the bales piled in layers on the lower story, which
she had scarcely noticed before, seemed unendurable. She longed for her
mother, her friends in Delft, and her quiet, cheerful home. For the
first time she ventured to call herself unhappy and, while walking
through the streets with downcast eyes against the wind, struggled vainly
to resist some mysterious, gloomy power, that compelled her to minutely
recall everything that had resulted differently from her expectations.