with a sudden start, "never mention
that money to me again."

Walpurga promised, and merely added that Irma needn't be alarmed at the
old man who lived in the room above hers, and who, at times, would talk
to himself and make a loud noise. He was old and blind. The children
teased and worried him, but he wasn't bad and would harm no one.
Walpurga offered, at all events, to leave Gundel with Irma for the
first night; but Irma preferred to be alone.

"You'll stay with us; won't you?" said Walpurga hesitatingly. "You
won't have such bad thoughts again?"

"No, never. But don't talk now, my voice pains me and so does yours,
too. Good-night! leave me alone."

Irma sat by the window and gazed out into the dark night.

Was it only a day since she had passed through such terrors? Suddenly
she sprang from her seat with a shudder. She had seen Black Esther's
head rising out of the darkness, had again heard her dying shriek, had
beheld the distorted face and the wild, black tresses.--Her hair stood
on end. Her thoughts carried her to the bottom of the lake, where she
now lay dead. She opened the window and inhaled the soft, balmy air.
She sat by the open casement for a long while, and suddenly heard some
one laughing in her room above her.

"Ha! ha! I won't do you the favor! I won't die! I won't die! Pooh,
pooh! I'll live till I'm a hundred years old and then I'll get a new
lease of life."

It was the old pensioner. After a while, he continued:

"I'm not so stupid; I know that it's night now and the freeholder and
his wife are come. I'll give them lots of trouble. I'm Jochem. Jochem's
my name, and what the people don't like, I do for spite. Ha! ha! ha! I
don't use any light and they must make me an allowance for that. I'll
insist on it, if I have to go to the king himself about it."

Irma started, when she heard the king mentioned.

"Yes, I'll go to the king, to the king! to the king!" cried the old man
overhead, as if he knew that the word tortured Irma.

She heard him close the window and move a chair. The old man went to
bed.

Irma looked out into the dark night. Not a star was to be seen. There
was no light anywhere; nothing was heard but the roaring of the
mountain stream and the rustling of the trees. The night seemed like a
dark abyss.

"Are you still awake?" asked a soft voice without. It was the
grandmother.

"I was once a servant at this farm," said she. "That was forty years
ago; and now I'm the mothe