ht long when the physician told her
mother of the danger in which I stood.

This confession sounded like angel voices. It made me infinitely happy,
yet I had strength to entreat Nenny to treasure this blissful hour with
me as the fairest jewel of our lives, and then help me to fulfil the duty
of parting from her.

But she took a different view of the future. It was enough for her to
know that my heart was hers. If I died young, she would follow me.

And now the devout child, who firmly believed in a meeting after death
face to face, permitted me a glimpse of the wondrous world in which she
hoped to have her portion after the end here.

I listened in astonishment, with sincere emotion. This was the faith
which moved mountains, which brings heaven itself to earth.

Afterwards I again beheld the eyes with which, gazing into vacancy, she
tried to conjure up before my soul these visions of hope from the realm
of her fairest dreams--they were those of Raphael's Saint Cecilia in
Bologna and Munich. I also saw them long after Nenny's death in one of
Murillo's Madonnas in Seville, and even now they rise distinctly before
my memory.

To disturb this childish faith or check the imagination winged by this
devout enthusiasm would have seemed to me actually criminal. And I was
young. Even the suffering I had endured had neither silenced the yearning
voice of my heart nor cooled the warmth of my blood. I, who had believed
that the garden of love was forever closed against me, was beloved by the
most beautiful girl, who was even dearer to me than life, and with new
hope, which Nenny's faith in God's goodness bedewed with warm spring
rain, I enjoyed this happiness.

Yet conscience could not be silenced. The warning voice of my mother, to
whom I had opened my heart, sharpened the admonitions of mine; and when
Wildbad brought me only relief, by no means complete recovery, I left the
decision to the physician. It was strongly adverse. Under the most
favourable circumstances years must pass ere I should be justified in
binding any woman's fate to mine.

So this beginning of a beautiful and serious love story became a swiftly
passing dream. Its course had been happy, but the end dealt my heart a
blow which healed very slowly. It opened afresh when in her parents'
house, where during my convalescence I was a frequent guest, I myself
advised her to marry a young land-owner, who eagerly wooed her. She
became his wife, but only a year l