rainbows were shining; and while we were
playing there, and were very happy chasing the butterflies, the Herr
Tutor, who was an angel, and who went to heaven, came and took us by the
hand; and, when we saw his face, we knew that he is an angel now; and he
led us through the garden, and talked to us of many things--of God, and
of angels, and of heaven--just as he used to do. But I saw that, though
he talked so pleasantly, he was leading us out of this pleasant garden,
and the flowers grew dim, and the butterflies flew away, and the sky
became very dark. And he led us quite out of the garden into a
burial-ground, where there were tombs, and open graves, and crosses, and
tall dark trees that bore no flower; and the Herr Tutor told us not to
be afraid, and led us on through the graves without speaking any more.
He led us into the midst of the burial-ground, and in the midst of the
burial-ground there was a Calvary, and at the foot of the Calvary there
was a bier. And on the bier we saw you and papa lying quite straight and
still, and we thought that you were dead. And the Herr Tutor vanished
away; and we were so frightened that we cried. And we knelt side by
side, and prayed to the Christ that He would come down. And the Christ
came down from the cross, and came to the bier, and touched it, and you
and papa stood up beautiful and smiling, and came towards us with
outstretched hands, and the Christ vanished away. And we were so glad
that we awoke; and it was dark, and there was no Christ, and no Herr
Tutor, who is an angel, and no papa, and no one to tell us what to do
or where to go."

As the little Princess ceased some servants came in, with whispered
explanations and apologies. The Princess went to her own room. She had
not known what to say to the child; indeed, she hardly knew what had
passed. She allowed herself to be undressed, and lay down.

But, in the deep silence of the hours that preceded the dawn, an
overpowering restlessness took possession of her. A sense of strange
forces and influences, to which she was utterly unaccustomed, seemed
present to her spirit: a crowd of fair and heavenly existences, which
seemed to follow on the steps of that singular boy who had first
attracted her wearied fancy, the Signorina's singing, which had stamped
this impression upon her mind, the strange tenderness she had been
conscious of, the renewed sense of her husband's grace and beauty, his
alarming absence, her children's myst