tion--so absorbed is
love in its own self--he rose, and took the old woman's hand.

"Yes! I will speak; my heart has long been overcharged with its own
secret, even to bursting," he said; "and it throbs to unburden itself
into some sympathizing heart! And why not thine, good Magdalena? Ever
since fate has brought us so strangely together, thou hast been like a
mother to me!"

"Do not I owe you all?" interrupted the old woman; "my life--my daily
bread--a shelter for my old limbs in the cell below?"

"Alas! I have but little to give, poor Magdalena!" said the young man
kindly.

"And that little thou hast shared with me as a son," continued Magdalena
bending her head over his hand as if to kiss it.

"Yes, thou shalt know all," pursued Gottlob; "for it would seem as
though the destiny that threw thee in my way were linked with hers. Her
image it was that led me to the spot where first I saw thee. It was the
last day of the Carnival, at the beginning of this year, and there was a
fete at the palace of the Ober-Amtmann. I had long gazed with adoration
upon that angelic face, and treasured it in my heart. I already
worshipped yon saintly portraits, because in one--God forgive me the
profane thought!--I had found a faint forth-showing of the beam of her
bright eye; in another, the gentle, dimpled smile of her sweet mouth; in
a third, her pure and saint-like brow. It was not for such as I, a poor
artist, to be invited to the noble Amtmann's fete; but I thought that,
through the windows in the illuminated halls, I might perchance trace
her passing shadow. I fancied that, by some unforeseen accident, she
might come forth upon the terrace, overhanging the river's banks--a
foolish fancy, for the night was wintry and cold. I hoped to see her, no
matter how; and I wandered out of the town--for its gates were open for
that holiday--to look upon the lighted windows of the palace from the
opposite side of the stream. The snow was on the ground. My mantle
scarcely preserved me from the bitter cold. But I felt it not. It was
only when a groan sounded near me, that I thought on the sufferings of
others in such a night. I looked around me; and there, not far from me,
on the snow, before the very windows of the palace, where within was
music and dancing, and feasting and mirth, lay thy form, poor Magdalena!
Feeble, helpless, stiff with cold, thou appearedst to me in the last
agonies of death."

"Yes; I had laid me down to die, in sorro