thes, to dance, and--yes, Anna, don't look wise and solemn! I want
admiration, applause, power. Anna, Anna, I wish I had been born like you'
(the hunchback shuddered), 'yes, yes! You know what I mean! To like those
things you like, all of which you can get----'

'What foolishness!' broke in Anna; 'content with what one can have is
the only happiness. Wilhelmine, some day perhaps you will have the things
you pine for, far more perhaps, and then you will want others, always
more!'

'Give me these things, and I will not ask for more!' burst out
Wilhelmine.

'So you always say, Wilhelmine, and always will--even when----'

'Anna, you do not understand! how could you? I want life and all that
life holds----' She opened her strange, grasping hands, and they closed
over the other's wrists in a compelling grip.

At this moment a clatter arose in the narrow, ill-paved street, in which
stood Frau von Graevenitz's house.

A man on a mud-bespattered horse cantered to the door of the Rathaus and
pulled up with a flourish, blowing a shrill blast on a horn. He was
accoutred in the blue and silver uniform which the Princes of Thurn and
Taxis decreed to be worn by the Imperial Post.

The Taxis were Hereditary Grand Masters of the Imperial Post, which
office they had found to be a valuable source of income, for the entire
return of the exorbitant postal rates went into their pockets; still the
people had cause for gratitude to the Taxis, as, at least, their care
assured a tolerably safe carrying of letters, and, to a certain extent, a
systematised postal service.

In those days the arrival of the mail was an important event. It awoke
the small German town from its habitual slumberous dullness, and a letter
caused its recipient to be regarded as a person of consequence.

A crowd of town cronies and gossips immediately formed round the
horseman. They did not ask if he brought a letter; indeed, that was
unlikely, but news! news of the war! What were the Frenchmen doing? had
they gone back to their godless country?

The man answered these questions as best he might. He knew little, he
said, for he only carried despatches from Schwerin. News of the war in
the South? Well,--they said in Schwerin that Marshal Villars had left
Wirtemberg with his army, but there was a letter in his bag from
Wirtemberg for the Fraeulein von Graevenitz, and perchance she would be
able to tell them. At mention of this a busybody ran up the narrow
street,