still. Hold! what was that? what struck there? what burst yonder? what
seized the boat? It heeled, and lay on its beam ends! Was it a
waterspout? Was it a heavy sea coming suddenly down? The boy at the
helm cried out aloud, "Heaven help us!" The boat had struck on a
great rock standing up from the depths of the sea, and it sank like an
old shoe in a puddle; it sank "with man and mouse," as the saying is;
and there were mice on board, but only one man and a half, the skipper
and the labourer's boy. No one saw it but the swimming seagulls, and
the fishes down yonder, and even they did not see it rightly, for they
started back in terror when the water rushed into the ship, and it
sank. There it lay scarce a fathom below the surface, and those two
were provided for, buried and forgotten! Only the glass with the foot
of blue wood did not sink; for the wood kept it up; the glass drifted
away, to be broken and cast upon the shore--where and when? But,
indeed, that is of no consequence. It had served its time, and it had
been loved, which Anne Lisbeth's boy had not been. But in heaven no
soul will be able to say, "Never loved!"

Anne Lisbeth had lived in the city for many years. She was called
Madame, and felt her dignity, when she remembered the old "noble" days
in which she had driven in the carriage, and had associated with
countesses and baronesses. Her beautiful noble-child was the dearest
angel, the kindest heart; he had loved her so much, and she had loved
him in return; they had kissed and loved each other, and the boy had
been her joy, her second life. Now he was so tall, and was fourteen
years old, handsome and clever: she had not seen him since she carried
him in her arms; for many years she had not been in the count's
palace, for indeed it was quite a journey thither.

"I must once make an effort and go," said Anne Lisbeth. "I must go to
my darling, to my sweet count's child. Yes, he certainly must long to
see me too, the young count; he thinks of me and loves me as in those
days when he flung his angel arms round my neck and cried 'Anne Liz.!'
It sounded like music. Yes, I must make an effort and see him again."

She drove across the country in a grazier's cart, and then got out and
continued her journey on foot, and thus reached the count's castle. It
was great and magnificent as it had always been, and the garden looked
the same as ever; but all the people there were strangers to her; not
one of them knew Anne