are still
awake. I had a fine fright a little while ago. What do you think,
Marieken Maertens, the crazy thing, tried to drown herself; a man from
the village pulled her out of the pond."

Anna Maria had grown white as a corpse; she had to sit down on the edge
of her bed, and her great eyes looked in sheer amazement at the old
woman. "What for?" she asked hastily, and almost sharply.

"Indeed, Fraeulein, for what else but because of the stupid affair with
Gottlieb? You know what his mother is. Marieken did not dare go home all
at once--there are mouths enough to feed: so her sweetheart took her
home to his mother, and she told him he should not come to her with a
girl whom the gracious Fraeulein had dismissed, that he must not think of
marrying the girl as long as she lived; you know, Fraeulein, the old
woman swears by the family here. And so the stupid thing took it into
her head to go into the water."

Anna Maria looked silently before her, and her whole body shook as if
she had a chill.

"Heavens, you are ill!" cried the old woman.

"No, no," the girl denied, "I am not ill; go, only go; I am tired and
want to sleep."

Brockelmann went to her room, shaking her head. "Well, well," she
murmured, "I did think she would be sorry for the poor girl, but no!"
She sighed, and closed the door behind her. But toward morning she was
suddenly startled from her slumber by the violent ringing of a bell in
her room.

"Good heavens, Anna Maria!" she cried. "She is ill!" In her heart the
old woman still called her young mistress by her child's name. Hastily
throwing on one or two garments she hurried through the cold passage,
just lighted by the gray dawn. Anna Maria was sitting upright in her
bed, a candle was burning on the table by her side, and lit up a face
worn with weeping. The old woman saw plainly that the girl had been
weeping, though she extinguished the candle at once.

"Brockelmann!" she called to her, but not as usual in the old imperious
manner, and she now hesitated; "as soon as it is light, send for
Gottlieb's mother; I want to talk with her about the girl. And now go,"
she added, as the old woman was about to say something, "I am so tired
to-day!"

CHAPTER III.

"The time passes away, one scarcely knows what has become of it; even in
my solitude, it does not seem long to me. Really, the starlings are here
already. Where has the winter gone? Strange!"

Aunt Rosamond held this soliloquy at her c