feelings are not so keen." Then suddenly she put out her hands towards
me, and, when I offered mine, caught my fingers with a nervous grasp and
drew herself to a sitting position. "Ah, why must I be afflicted with a
misery others have not known!" she exclaimed excitedly. "To be lifted
above the others, when so young; to have one child only; then after so
brief a period of happiness, to be smitten with barrenness, and this
lingering malady ever gnawing like a canker at the roots of life! Who
has suffered like me in the house? You only, Isarte, among the dead. I
will go to you, for my grief is more than I can bear; and it may be that
I shall find comfort even in speaking to the dead, and to a stone. Can
you bear me in your arms?" she said, clasping me round the neck. "Take
me up in your arms and carry me to Isarte."

I knew what she meant, having so recently heard the story of Isarte, and
in obedience to her command I raised her from the couch. She was tall,
and heavier than I had expected, though so greatly emaciated; but the
thought that she was Yoletta's mother, and the mother of the house,
nerved me to my task, and cautiously moving step by step through the
gloom, I carried her safely to that white-haired, moonlit woman of stone
in the long gallery. When I had ascended the steps and brought her
sufficiently near, she put her arms about the statue, and pressed its
stony lips with hers.

"Isarte, Isarte, how cold your lips are!" she murmured, in low,
desponding tones. "Now, when I look into these eyes, which are yours,
and yet not yours, and kiss these stony lips, how sorely does the hunger
in my heart tempt me to sin! But suffering has not darkened my reason; I
know it is an offense to ask anything of Him who gives us life and all
good things freely, and has no pleasure in seeing us miserable. This
thought restrains me; else I would cry to Him to turn this stone to