low; he was taken to
headquarters in irons, and, after a short trial by court-martial, shot
on the same day. The family did not learn the terrible news until
weeks later, from a dry official letter of the regimental commander.
How terrible was the grief of the father and sister! The man aged ten
years in a week, and the girl, at that time a child twelve years old,
became so pale and thin from sorrow that the neighbors thought she
would not survive it. Not survive it? What do we not outlive! She
conquered the anguish and developed into the most beautiful maiden in
the village.

There was an austere charm, an unintentional, unconscious attraction in
her, which won every one. Her notorious origin was not visited upon
her, and even the rich girls in the village gladly made her their
friend. While at work in the fields she sang in a ringing voice; in
the spinning-room, in winter, she was full of jests and merry tales, as
gay and gracious as beseemed her age. Probably on account of her
vivacious temperament and the feeling of vigour which robust health
bestows, she was extremely fond of dancing, and never failed on Sundays
to appear in the large courtyard of the tavern when, in the afternoon,
the whirling and stamping began. Her beauty would doubtless have made
her the most popular partner among the girls, had not the lads felt a
certain fear of her. A purring kitten among her girl companions, ready
to give and take practical jokes, she was all claws and teeth against
men, and many a bold youth who, after the dance, attempted to take the
usual liberties, met with so severe a rebuff that he bore for a week a
memento in the shape of a scratch across his whole face. Therefore she
did not have a superabundance of partners, and thus escaped the
jealousy which, otherwise, her charms would certainly have roused in
the other girls.

A dispensation of Providence rendered her irritability the means of
deciding the whole course of her life.

One Sunday, late in the summer, soon after the reaping and threshing
were over--she was then twenty--she again stood in the bright warm
afternoon sunshine in the spacious courtyard of the village tavern,
among a gay group of giggling lasses, waiting with joyful impatience
for the dancing to begin. The two village gipsies who made bricks
during the week and played on Sundays, were already there, leaning
against one of the wooden pillars of the porch in front of the house,
and tuning t