a great-aunt of her husband's.' (My friend was
standing by me, and looking at the picture with sympathetic curiosity.)
'See! here is the name on the open page of this Bible, "Anna Scherer,
1778." Frau Scherer says there is a tradition in the family that this
pretty girl, with her complexion of lilies and roses, lost her colour
so entirely through fright, that she was known by the name of the Grey
Woman. She speaks as if this Anna Scherer lived in some state of
life-long terror. But she does not know details; refers me to her
husband for them. She thinks he has some papers which were written by
the original of that picture for her daughter, who died in this very
house not long after our friend there was married. We can ask Herr
Scherer for the whole story if you like.'

'Oh yes, pray do!' said I. And, as our host came in at this moment to
ask how we were faring, and to tell us that he had sent to Heidelberg
for carriages to convey us home, seeing no chance of the heavy rain
abating, my friend, after thanking him, passed on to my request.

'Ah!' said he, his face changing, 'the aunt Anna had a sad history. It
was all owing to one of those hellish Frenchmen; and her daughter
suffered for it--the cousin Ursula, as we all called her when I was a
child. To be sure, the good cousin Ursula was his child as well. The
sins of the fathers are visited on their children. The lady would like
to know all about it, would she? Well, there are papers--a kind of
apology the aunt Anna wrote for putting an end to her daughter's
engagement--or rather facts which she revealed, that prevented cousin
Ursula from marrying the man she loved; and so she would never have any
other good fellow, else I have heard say my father would have been
thankful to have made her his wife.' All this time he was rummaging in
the drawer of an old-fashioned bureau, and now he turned round, with a
bundle of yellow MSS. in his hand, which he gave to my friend, saying,
'Take it home, take it home, and if you care to make out our crabbed
German writing, you may keep it as long as you like, and read it at
your leisure. Only I must have it back again when you have done with
it, that's all.'

And so we became possessed of the manuscript of the following letter,
which it was our employment, during many a long evening that ensuing
winter, to translate, and in some parts to abbreviate. The letter began
with some reference to the pain which she had already inflicted upon
h