mmunity had been realised in a modified fashion. She had caused
the stringent laws against the Jews to be relaxed; they were permitted to
worship openly; a synagogue was erected in Stuttgart, and Jews could
acquire civil rights. At her village of Freudenthal she had founded a
Jewish settlement. Old Frau Hazzim died there in peace, blessing the name
of the friend of Israel. The Jews, in return, served the Graevenitz well,
and she had great sums safely awaiting her out of Wirtemberg. All this in
preparation for the death of the man she loved! Yet, after all, the most
loving and perfect wives make these arrangements if they can: the
dower-house filled with linen and silver, and the jointure; but it will
ever be regarded as a heinous offence for the mistress to provide for
herself. These condemnations of ours are a part of the spontaneous human
judgment, and it would not be entirely human were it not gloriously
inconsistent.

Freudenthal was the place she loved best of all her possessions, and here
she gathered together the most beautiful objects: pictures, Italian
inlaid cabinets, graceful French furniture, wonderful silken hangings,
carved ivories, many rare books. The gardens were laid out by her own
design. Freudenthal lies sequestered from the world at the edge of a
little valley, and close behind the village rise long, low, wooded
hills--the Stromberg, dark with fir-trees, whose sombre tone is relieved
by groves of beeches. Below Freudenthal verdant fields sweep away in soft
undulations, broken here and there by beautiful orchards. The Graevenitz
knew that an elaborate garden would be a false note in this rustic
serenity, and her Freudenthal garden was designed in a simple style. She
had found there a peasant's orchard, with many ancient fruit-trees;
these she left untouched, merely sowing fine grass instead of the corn
which waves beneath the apple- and pear-trees in every Wirtemberg
orchard. The actual garden she planted with bowers of roses and beautiful
flowering borders along broad grass pathways. The only artificial
embellishments were two flights of stone steps leading to simple
fountains with large stone basins, where the water gurgled and splashed
lazily. 'Frisoni, build the house not in the new style, I pray you,' she
had said, 'some graceful Italian simplicity were better here'; and he
built a very pleasant mansion, unturreted, without tortured elegancies--a
long, low, broad-windowed country retreat, each pr