often to tenderness, could
glow with enthusiasm over a song or poem. But these softer moods were
rare; in Wilhelmine's life there was little to call forth a gentle
feeling. She lived alone with her mother in the small dark house, her
brother Friedrich was away at the wars, her elder sister had married a
middle-class personage of the name of Sittmann, a struggling Berlin
merchant; and thus Wilhelmine led a dull life enough, for she despised
the homely Guestrow citizens, who in return disliked and feared her and
called her witch. Frau von Graevenitz was a talkative dame, who passed her
days in gossip and in waiting for news of her son Friedrich--'my soldier
son at the wars with our brave Mecklemburgians, who follow the allied
army under the great Englishman Malbruck!' as she informed her neighbours
a hundred times a day. Upon Wilhelmine she lavished little affection,
grudging her the scanty fare, and continually reminding her that she must
marry. 'And who is more fitting a husband than Herr Pastor Mueller?' she
would add. 'Though,' she grumbled, 'he is not of noble birth, still he is
a solid man; and really in these days, when all the country is upset and
one never knows when the French King and his wickedness may come upon us;
what with one thing and another, indeed, a maiden may be pleased to find
even a plebeian protector.' Thus she rambled on in her sharp voice, yet
there was cause for her anxiety, and truth lay beneath her cackle, but
the wisdom of age is often obscured by its presentment.

Wilhelmine paid little heed to her mother's eloquence; though this
morning, as she sat on the edge of her bed, it was of those daily tirades
that she thought.

Frau von Graevenitz was a sore trial. The food in her house was poor and
scanty. The house itself dirty and untidy, with one peasant girl to do
all the work. Wilhelmine hated this misery. She dreamed of ease and
plenty, of soft linen, of bright garments, of balls and masques, of
gaiety and splendour.

Pastor Mueller had none of these things to offer, she reflected; and she
saw in prospect long years of dull sermons to be yawned through,
stockings--thick, ugly stockings--to darn, stuffy respectability!--A
timid knock came at the door, and Wilhelmine called the permission to
enter, in a voice still clouded and harsh from her dreary reflections.
The door opened, disclosing a curious and pathetic figure wrapped in a
tattered homespun cloak.

It seemed to be a child, for it