some months of the highest earthly
felicity. But brief was the happiness to be. Wolf perished on a
sea-voyage, and his inconsolable wife sunk under her sorrow. She died
some hours after she had given birth to a son, and after she had laid
her tender babe in my arms, and prayed me to become its mother.

"And I became a mother to this child. An own son could not have possibly
been dearer to me. I was proud of the handsome lively child. I saw a
beautiful future for him. He should realise the ideal of my youth, he
should.... Oh! amid my own poor and desolate life I was yet rich in this
boy. But the man who had received my hand endured not that my heart
should belong to this child. He took a hatred to the poor boy, and my
life became more than ever bitter.--Once I was obliged to make a journey
to visit a sick relative. I wished to take the seven-year-old boy with
me, for he had never been separated from me. But my husband would retain
him with him, and assumed a tone of tenderness to persuade me. This I
could not resist; and spite of the boy's entreaties, and an anxiety
which seemed to me ominous--I left my poor child. I persuaded myself
that I was acting strongly, and I was really weak. I had promised the
child's mother to protect it--I knew that I left it in hard and hostile
hands, and yet!---- When after a week's absence I returned from my
journey, the boy--had vanished. He had gone out one day, it was said,
and never came back again. They had sought for him everywhere, and at
length had found his little hat upon a rock on the edge of the sea--it
was held for certain that he had fallen over it.--I found my husband
busy in taking possession of my sister's property, which in case of the
boy's death should, according to her will, fall to us. From this moment,
my soul was seized with the most horrible suspicions!... God be praised
that these were false! God forgive me that I ever entertained them!

"For twenty years have they gnawed at my heart; for twenty years have
they hung the weight of lead on the fulfilment of my duties. All my
researches were fruitless: no one could be suspected; no one seemed to
have acted herein, except a dreadful fate. This was all:--the boy had
had permission to go out and play, had left the house alone, and no one
had seen him afterwards.

"Twenty years--long, dark years--had passed since this period, and hope
had by degrees expired in my heart, the feeble hope, which sometimes
revived in it, th