, which beat loud and
violently.

"Help me! tell me what to do! Tell me quickly, before your mother
comes!"

"I don't know--I don't know at all--but mother will know. She knows how
to help every one. See there, it's stopped bleeding, already. Only keep
calm."

The mother joined them. Irma looked at her, as if she were an angel
come to save her. With a voice free from the slightest trace of doubt
and hesitation, the mother said:

"Walpurga, this is your Countess!"

"Yes, mother."

"Then you're a thousand times welcome," said the old woman. "I offer
you both my hands. Sad things must have happened to you. You must have
fallen. Or has some one struck you in the forehead?"

Irma made no reply. She sat between the two women who supported her,
and her gaze was as fixed as though she were lifeless.

"Mother, help her; say something to her," whispered Walpurga.

"No; let her quietly recover herself. Every wound must bleed itself
out."

Irma grasped her hands, kissed them and cried:

"Mother! you've saved me. Mother! I'll remain with you; take me with
you!"

"Yes, that I will. You'll find it ever so healthy up in my home. The
air and the trees there are better than anywhere else in this world.
There you'll become well again, all this will fall away from you. Does
your father know that you've run away, out into the wide world? and
does he know why?"

"He did know. He's dead. Walpurga, tell her how it is with me."

"There's time enough for that; for, God willing, we'll be together a
long while. You can tell me all when you're calm and composed. But now,
drink something."

After considerable effort, the two women succeeded in drawing the
silver-foiled cork. Walpurga finished the operation by taking the cork
between her teeth and pulling it out. Irma drank some of the wine.

"Drink," said Walpurga. "It must be wholesome, for Doctor Gunther sent
it to mother. But she won't drink it. She says she'll wait till she
grows old and needs the strength that wine gives."

A melancholy smile passed over Irma's face at the thought that the aged
woman before her meant to wait until she grew old.

Irma was obliged to take a few more mouthfuls of the wine. When she
complained of the pain in her foot, the mother skillfully extracted a
thorn. Irma felt as if a gentle angel were attending her, and offered
to kiss the old woman's hands once more. "My hands were never kissed
before you kissed 'em," said the old woman deprecatin