GREIFENSTEIN


BY


F. MARION CRAWFORD





CHAPTER I


Frau von Sigmundskron was not really much past middle age, though the
people in the village generally called her the old baroness. Her hair
was very white and she was thin and pale; her bold features, almost
emaciated, displayed the framework of departed beauty, and if her high
white forehead and waxen face were free from lines and wrinkles, it
must have been because time and grief could find no plastic material
there in which to trace their story. She was a very tall woman, too,
and carried her head erect and high, walking with a firmness and
elasticity of step such as would not have been expected in one whose
outward appearance conveyed so little impression of strength. It is
true that she had never been ill in her life and that her leanness was
due to the most natural of all causes; but these facts were not patent
to the observer, and for reasons which will presently appear she
herself would have been the last to mention them. There was something,
too, in the look of her blue eyes, shaded by long brown lashes which