y were gathering beech-mast, and since then he has been plagued by a
burning fever-fit."

"It is like a frightful nightmare."

"I tell you the truth, and such a thing is only what your family
deserves--a murderer of his sister only four years old! Sins like yours
are enough to hasten on the end of the world."

"And where, then, is the poor tiny little body of my innocent child?"

"I sought for it next day, but I could not find it. On the very day of
the evil deed I durst not go there, for I was afraid they might think I
killed her. Here and there among the bushes were fragments of a little
pink frock. I also came across a tiny red slipper with a golden
butterfly on it, and some gay ribbons which must have tied up her hair.
I have often heard the wolves howl at night in that very place. They can
tell perhaps where she is."

"Would that my son might die also!" cried the mother in the anguish of
her despair.

"He would die even if you did _not_ wish it. An old man might live
perhaps with such a mental cancer, but it will destroy a child. Ah!
there is no remedy against the worms that gnaw away at the soul."

"Will he be tormented for long?"

"If you do not wish to see his torments, stand by his bed when nobody
else is by, cross yourself thrice, and repeat the words which his dying
sister said to him: 'Don't bury me, Neddy! Little Emma won't cry!'--and
then he will die."

"How his father will weep! It is his favourite child--he loved him
better than the little girl."

"How his grandfather will weep! For he loved them both, and they were
both his pets."

CHAPTER IV.

A DIVINE VISITATION.

The whole region was pitch black, half the night was over, there was no
sign of life anywhere.

But slumber was no dweller in _that_ darkness, the terrible voice of God
drove it far away from the eyes of men--Heaven was thundering as if it
would have smashed this nebulous star of ours here below into fragments.
Who could sleep at such a time?

One thunderbolt followed hard upon another. Whenever the crashing uproar
ceased for an instant one could hear the ringing of bells, which the
superstitious peasantry set a-going to charm away the terrifying
tempest.

At such times every soul of man prays silently in its quiet place of
rest. Not a single light is burning in any of the windows, the awakened
sleeper lies with fast-closed eyes beneath his coverlet, all his sins
rise up before him, all his sins and their punish