being happy, or compensate for unsatisfied desires--"

She paused a moment and gazed sadly into vacancy. A sigh heaved her
bosom and made her nostrils quiver. "How cold it is!" she said, drawing
her cloak closer around her. "Come, we will walk a little faster. Where
was I? Oh yes; I was talking about knitting and sewing and everything
connected with them. How often I've heard and read that a girl will
find her vocation, her life-long happiness in love and marriage. I saw
this confirmed in my sisters, who though younger than I, had their
little love experiences much sooner, and patiently endured the tedium
of knitting and sewing, since their minds were not idle, but wove the
fairest dreams among the meshes and cross-stitches. Then they married
utterly insignificant people, but were perfectly satisfied, and
continued to labor with hands and heads for their husbands and
children. But I--my prince had married, too, in accordance with his
rank, and quite without agitation, as beseems porcelain figures, at
least so I heard, and I still stayed with my old parents, waiting to
ascend my ducal throne.

"I ought to be there now, and after all it would be better for me, than
to wander about here in the rain with you and talk of things that are
hopeless. But these poor, dear parents, to whom I was a source of great
anxiety--even my father shook his head sadly when my birthday came
round--were both taken from me in a single week, and with them the only
visible object in life of which I was conscious.

"Fortunately the butler, whom my father's will named as my guardian,
was a sensible man. He perceived that he could not persuade me to
remain quietly in the little house from which my parents had been borne
to their graves, waiting to see if any one would come and take me away.
He suggested, as I still had an unconcealed desire to know something of
the world, that an advertisement for the situation of governess or
companion should be inserted in several of the Berlin papers. A place
soon offered that seemed very suitable. A baroness wrote to ask if I
would take charge of the education of her two little daughters and
assist her in housekeeping, as she was in delicate health. Nothing more
than I had learned was required; masters and mistresses were engaged
for all the difficult branches of study.

"This was like a deliverance to me. To live in a large, elegant house,
make tea at the evening receptions, show that in spite of my provin