this sufferer. Yet her kind, colourless face, framed by the white sides
of her cap, quickly regained its usual quiet, placid expression.

The regular features, now slightly flushed with the fever, of the patient
in her charge, on the contrary, were constantly varying in expression.
She had noticed the entrance of the visitors, and when she opened her
sparkling blue eyes and saw the person to whom her poor heart clung with
insatiable yearning they were filled with a sunny radiance, and a smile
hovered round her lips.

She had known that he would come, that he would not let her die without
granting her one more glance.

Now she would fain have nodded to him and expressed in very, very
appropriate words the delight, the embarrassment, the gratitude which
filled her soul, but her panting chest could give no breath for
utterance. Nay, extreme exhaustion even prevented the movement of her
lips. But her heart and brain were by no means inactive. A wealth of
internal and external experiences, long since forgotten, rose before her
mind. First she fancied that she saw Lienhard, as at their first
meeting, approaching the garlanded door of St. Sebald's with his
beautiful bride, arrayed in her wedding robes. Then she was transported
to the court room and felt his hand stroke her hair. The hours at Frau
Schurstab's when she had awaited his visits with an anxious heart came
back to her memory. Then she again saw herself upon the rope. Lienhard
was toying with the little elf below. But what she beheld this time was
far from awakening new wicked wishes, for Juliane once more wore her
laurel crown and beckoned kindly to her like a dear, familiar friend.
Finally, pale little Juli appeared, as if shrouded in mists. Last of
all, she saw herself filling the jug for the sick woman and gathering the