e felt a hatred growing in her heart
for the wife of Eberhard Ludwig.

One morning towards the end of June, Wilhelmine awoke to find the grey
dawn creeping in at her window; she rose and opened the casement and
leaned out. Her room looked on the formal garden. There was a solemn hush
in the air, and she realised that even the birds were asleep. Far in the
east, over the top of the one beech-tree which still stood in the garden
in spite of M. Lenotre, the rising sun was tingeing the horizon with a
delicate rosy glow. A bird stirred--twittered--finally a clear note of
welcome to the day rang out, and the world was awake. The radiance in the
east grew brighter, long streaks of glorious colour invaded the soft grey
of dawn. From the distant field roads came the rumble of a peasant's
cart. Wilhelmine dressed herself hurriedly and tiptoed down the dark
stair to the house door. The broad street, the Graben, was deserted and
silent, save for an occasional rattle in the direction of the
market-place, where the peasants were arriving from the country with
their carts heaped up with fresh fruit and vegetables. She walked up the
street, delighting in the coolness and the scent of the morning air after
the long days of oppressive heat which she had endured. A fancy took her
to wander in the Rothwald, and she walked briskly along, up the dusty
country path which led to the wood on the hill. The sun had risen, and
even at that early hour the heat was so great that once or twice
Wilhelmine almost turned homewards; however, the thought of the cool
shade of the beech-trees in the forest drew her, and she pressed onward.
At length she reached the edge of the wood, and, turning, she
contemplated the steep hill which she had climbed from the town. The
rough country road wound like some white riband through the green
vineyards which lay between Stuttgart and the Rothwald. A light breeze
sprang up and stirred the long, lush grass of the field which bordered
the shadow of the trees. There is no part of a forest more beautiful than
the line where wood begins and meadow ends; it is as the lip of the
forest breathing forth in a fragrant kiss of poesy some mystery of silent
dells and fairy's haunts, which it hints of but does not quite betray.
Wilhelmine mused on this; she was gifted with a delicate appreciation of
each beauty-forming detail, and the accurate observation without which
the enjoyment of beauty is a mere sensuous mood. She paused a wh