re plotting against her life. At length their cruel scheming
succeeded, and one morning Kunigunda was found dead in her bed. Franz
made it known that she had been stifled by a fit of coughing, and her
remains were hastily conveyed to the family vault. Within a week the
false Amina was the bride of the Baron von Fuerstenberg.

Little Hugo, the son of Kunigunda, was to suffer much at the hands
of his stepmother and her dependents. The new mistress of the Schloss
Fuerstenberg hated the child as she had hated his mother, and Hugo was
given into the charge of an ill-natured old nurse, who frequently beat
him in the night because he awakened her with his cries.

One night the old hag was roused from her sleep by a strange sound, the
sound of a cradle being rocked. She imagined herself dreaming. Who would
come to this distant tower to rock the little Hugo? Not Amina, of that
she was sure! Again the sound was heard, unmistakably the creaking of
the cradle. Drawing aside her bed-curtains, the crone beheld a strange
sight. Over the cradle a woman was bending, clad in long, white
garments, and singing a low lullaby, and as she raised her pale face,
behold! it was that of the dead Kunigunda. The nurse could neither
shriek nor faint; as though fascinated, she watched the wraith nursing
her child, until at cockcrow Kunigunda vanished.

In trembling tones the nurse related what she had seen to Franz and
Amina. The Baron was scornful, and ridiculed the whole affair as a
dream. But the cunning Amina, though she did not believe that a ghost
had visited the child, thought that perhaps her rival was not really
dead, and her old hatred and jealousy were reawakened. So she told her
husband that she intended to see for herself whether there was any truth
in the fantastic story, and would sleep that night in the nurse's bed.
She did not mention her suspicions, nor the fact that she carried a
sharp dagger. She was roused in the night, as the old woman had been, by
the sound of a cradle being rocked. Stealthily drawing the curtains, she
saw the white-robed form of the dead, the black mould clinging to her
hair, the hue of death in her face. With a wild cry Amina flung herself
upon Kunigunda, only to find that she was stabbing at a thing of air, an
impalpable apparition which vanished at a touch. Overcome with rage and
fear, she sank to the ground. The wraith moved to the door, turning
with a warning gesture ere she vanished from sight, and Amin