med with lace. The flowers were still in her hair; and the blow
had come with such suddenness, that, even in death, she retained the
appearance of life; she was still warm, her skin transparent, and her
limbs supple. Even her eyes, still wide open, retained their expression,
and betrayed the last sensation that had filled her heart,--terror. It
looked as if she had had at that last moment a revelation of the future
which her too great cautiousness had prepared for her daughter.

"My mother is not dead; oh, no! she cannot be dead!" exclaimed
Henrietta. And she went from one doctor to the other, urging them,
beseeching them, to find some means--

What were they doing there, looking so blank, instead of acting? Were
they not going to restore her,--they whose business it was to cure
people, and who surely had saved a number of people? They turned away
from her, distressed by her terrible grief, expressing their inability
to help by a gesture; and then the poor girl went back to the bed, and,
bending over her mother, watched with a painfully bewildered air for her
return to life. It seemed to her as if she felt that noble heart still
beat under her hand, and as if those lips, sealed forever by death, must
speak again to re-assure her.

They attempted to take her away from that heartrending sight; they
begged her to go to her room; but she insisted upon staying. They tried
to remove her by force; but she clung to the bed, and vowed that they
should tear her to pieces sooner than make her leave her mother.

At last, however, the truth broke upon her. She sank down upon her knees
by the side of the bed, hiding her face in the drapery, and repeating
with fierce sobs,--

"My mother, my darling mother!"

It was nearly morning, and the pale dawn was stealing into the room,
when at last some sisters of charity came, who had been sent for; and
then a couple of priests; a little later (it was towards the end of
January) one of the count's friends appeared, who undertook all those
sickening preparations which our civilization demands in such cases. On
the next day the funeral took place.

More than two hundred persons called to condole with the count,
twenty-five or thirty ladies came and kissed Henrietta, calling her
their poor dear child.

Then horses were heard in the court-yard, coachmen quarrelling; orders
were given; and at last the hearse rolled away solemnly--and that was
all.

Henrietta wept and prayed in her chambe