ith eyes of wonder. If she could only bring herself
to love this man! But she was almost afraid of him--she could not help
it. And to have him thus fall from the clouds, as it were, and compel
her to love him, rather turned her against him.

"Where is your wife?" asked Amrei. She very likely felt that a woman
would have broached the subject in a more gentle and gradual manner.

"I will tell you honestly," answered her uncle. "My wife does not
interfere in this matter, and says she will neither persuade nor
dissuade me. She is a little sharp, but only at first--if you are good
to her, and you are a sensible child, you can twist her around your
finger. And if, once in a while, anything should happen to you that you
don't like, remember that you are at your father's brother's, and tell
me about it alone. I will help you all I can, and you shall see that
your real life is just beginning."

Amrei's eyes filled with tears at these words; and yet she could say
nothing, for she felt estranged toward this man. His voice appealed to
her, but when she looked at him, she felt as if she would have liked to
run away.

Damie now came with the key. Amrei started to take it from him, but he
would not give it up. With the peculiar pedantic conscientiousness of a
child he declared that he had faithfully promised Coaly Mathew's wife to
give it to nobody but his uncle. Accordingly the uncle took it from him,
and it seemed to Amrei as if a magic secret door were being opened when
the key for the first time rattled in the lock and turned--the hasp went
down and the door opened! A strange chill, like that of a vault, came
creeping from the black front-room, which had also served as a kitchen.
A little heap of ashes still lay on the hearth, and on the door the
initials of Caspar Melchior Balthasar and the date of the parent's
death, were written in chalk. Amrei read it aloud--her own father had
written it.

"Look," cried Damie, "the eight is shaped just as you make it, and as
the master won't have it--you know--from right to left."

Amrei motioned to him to keep quiet. She thought it terrible and sinful
that Damie should talk so lightly--here, where she felt as if she were
in church, or even in eternity--quite out of the world, and yet in the
very midst of it. She herself opened the inside door; the room was dark
as a grave, for the shutters were closed. A single sunbeam, shining
through a crack in the wall, fell on the angel's head on th