n saw herself upon the rope. Lienhard
was toying with the little elf below. But what she beheld this time was
far from awakening new wicked wishes, for Juliane once more wore her
laurel crown and beckoned kindly to her like a dear, familiar friend.
Finally, pale little Juli appeared, as if shrouded in mists. Last of
all, she saw herself filling the jug for the sick woman and gathering
the red pinks for her and Lienhard in the landlady's little garden by
the shimmering starlight. The flowers, whose fragrance was too strong,
yet which she had not the strength to remove, lay on the coverlet before
her. They were intended for Lienhard, and as she stretched her slender
fingers toward them and tried to clasp them she succeeded. She even
found strength to hold out her right hand to him with a beseeching
glance. And lo! ere her arm fell again the proud man had seized the
flowers. Then she saw him fasten the pinks on the breast of his dark
doublet, and heard the thrill of deep emotion in his voice, as he said:

"I thank you, dear Kuni, for the beautiful flowers. I will keep them.
Your life was a hard one, but you have borne the burden bravely. I saw
this clearly, and not I alone. I am also to thank you and give you very
friendly remembrances in the name of Doctor Peutinger, of Augsburg,
little Juliane's father. He will think of you as a mistress of your art,
a noble, high-minded girl, and I--I shall certainly do so."

He clasped her burning hand as he spoke; but at these words she felt
as she had probably done a few hours before, when, hidden behind the
oleander, she listened to the conversation in which he mentioned her
kindly. Again a warm wave of joy seemed to surge upward in her breast,
and she fancied that her heart was much too small for such a wealth of
rapture, and it was already overflowing in hot waves, washing all grief
far, far away.

Her gift had been accepted.

The red pinks looked at her from his doublet, and she imagined that
everything around was steeped in rosy light, and that a musical tinkling
and singing echoed in her ears.

Never had she experienced such a feeling of happiness.

Now she even succeeded in moving her lips, and the man, who still held
her little burning hand clasped in his first heard his own name very
faintly uttered; then her parched lips almost inaudibly repeated the
exclamation: "Too late!" and again, "Too late!"

The next instant she pressed her left hand upon her panting breast. T