new not what he did. The son was young and dissipated; my
mother a poor girl, but very handsome, I have heard. He seduced her.
She had become an unfortunate being, and that she herself felt. The
Colonel's son robbed his father and an old woman who lived in the
family: that which had been taken was missed. The father would have
murdered the son, had he discovered the truth; the son, therefore,
sought in his need help from my poor mother. He persuaded her to save
him by taking the guilt on herself. The whole affair as regarded her
was, he intended, only to come from the domestics. She thought that with
her honor all was lost. She, indeed, had already given him the best of
which she was possessed. In anguish of heart, and overpowered by his
prayers, she said, 'Yes; my father has been angry and undone already.'"

Eva burst into tears.

"Thou dear, good girl!" said Louise, and kissed her forehead.

"My poor mother," continued Eva, "was condemned to an undeserved
punishment. I cannot mention it. For that reason I have never had a
desire to go to Odense. The old lady in the Colonel's family concealed,
out of kindness, her loss; but by accident it was discovered. The
Colonel was greatly embittered. My mother was overwhelmed by shame and
misfortune: the first error had plunged her into all this. She was
taken to the House of Correction in Odense. The Colonel's son shortly
afterward went away in a vessel. My unhappy mother was dispirited:
nobody knew that she had endured, out of despair and love, a disgrace
which she had not deserved. It was not until she lay upon her death-bed,
when I and my brother were born, that she told a relation that she was
innocent. Like a criminal, in the early morning she was carried to
the grave in a coffin of plaited straw. A great and a noble heart was
carried unacknowledged to the dead!"

"You had a brother?" inquired Louise, and her heart beat violently. "Did
he die? and where did you, poor children, remain?"

"The cook in the house kept us with her. I was small and weak; my
brother, on the contrary, was strong, and full of life. He lived mostly
among the prisoners. I sat in a little room with my doll. When we were
in our seventh year, we were sent for to the old Colonel. His son died
abroad; but before his death he had written to the old man, confessing
to him his crime, my mother's innocence, and that we were his children!
I resembled my father greatly. The old gentleman, as soon as he saw