ed to the sound of heavenly voices. Instead of
representing the penitent daughter of the king as crushed and bruised
from having mortified the flesh, the artist has made her features
expressive of restored, childlike innocence and youthful beauty--a nude
figure, divested of all raiment, wrapped in the long, fair tresses that
descend to her knees. She is kneeling beside the open grave that is to
receive her. Her blue eyes gaze into eternity; her lips are closed, as
if in pain, and above her hovers an angel who spreads the mantle of
mercy over her and exclaims: "Thou art forgiven!" Forgiven and
redeemed, she sinks into the grave.

The ascetic tone of the picture fully accorded with the queen's mood,
and the canon often found her lost in ecstatic admiration of it.

Although Doctor Gunther disapproved of this mute companionship, his
wishes and his orders were alike unavailing. It was the first time that
this man, who was so highly esteemed by the queen, had encountered
obstinacy and unyielding defiance at her hands. When Irma saw the
picture, she carelessly remarked that the position of the eyes was
faulty, but that the artist had skillfully availed himself of this
fault in order to produce a peculiar expression. The queen pressed her
hand to her heart--she was alone in her feelings and wished to remain
so.

Walpurga was successful where both Gunther and Irma had failed.

"Is that a forest-sprite?" asked she,

"What's that?"

"Out our way, they tell of the forest-sprites. They haunt the mountains
on ghost-nights, and can wrap themselves in their long hair."

The queen related the legend of Maria AEgyptica to Walpurga. She was a
princess who had led a dissolute life. Suddenly, she left the palace
and, renouncing all pleasures, went out into the desert, where she
supported herself on roots and lived many years, until all her clothes
fell from her body: and, when her dying hour arrived, an angel
descended from above and spread the mantle of mercy over her--

"That's all very good and pretty," said Walpurga, "but, no offense to
you, my queen, it seems a sin to have such a terrible picture before
one's eyes. I wouldn't want to sleep in the same room with it. It seems
as if some night it would come down and drag me into the open grave
with it. Oh, dear Lord! I'm afraid of it, even in broad daylight."

Walpurga's words were not without effect. When night came, the queen
really imagined that the picture was coming toward