e said to her husband in a brighter voice, "this will
do me good. I have a vague feeling--no, I really feel quite sure that
something good will happen to us here."

And he hoped so too. He forced himself to hope in order to please
her. Oh, it would be enough, quite enough if the characteristics of the
landscape won so much interest from her that she took up her painting
again, which she had neglected entirely. How pleased he would be at
even that. If her former zeal for art showed itself again, that was a
thousand times more health-bringing than the strongest iron springs at
Spa.

The heather was in bloom, the whole plateau was red, the purple sun
set in a mass of purple.

It happened as he had hoped, that is to say, she did not begin to
paint, but she made expeditions into the Ardennes and the Eifel with
him on foot and in a carriage, and enjoyed them. The Venn had bewitched
her. In her light-coloured dress she stood like a small speck
of light in the immense seriousness of the landscape, protected her
eyes with her hand from the view of the sun, which is so open there, so
unobstructed either by tree or mountain, and took deep breaths of the
sharp clear air that has not yet been vitiated by any smoke from human
dwellings, hardly by human breath. Around her the Venn blossomed like a
carpet of one colour, dark, calm, refreshing and beneficial to the eye;
it was only here and there that the blue gentian and the white
quivering flock of the cotton-grass were seen to raise their heads
among the heather.

"Oh, how beautiful!" She said it with deep feeling. The melancholy
of the landscape flattered her mood. There was no gaudy tone there that
disturbed her, no medley of colours. Even the sun, which sets there in
greater beauty than anywhere else--blushing so deeply that the whole
sky blushes with it, that the winding Venn rivulet hedged in by
cushions of moss, that every pool, every peat-hole full of water
reflects its beams ruddy-gold, and the sad Venn itself wears a mantle
of glowing splendour--even this sun brought no glaringly bright light
with it. It displayed its mighty disc in a grand dignified manner, a
serious victor after a serious struggle.

Kate looked into this marvellous sun with large eyes bathed in
tears, until the last beam, the last rosy streak in the grey mass of
clouds had vanished. Now it had gone--the heavens were dead--but
in the morning it would be there again, an eternal, imperishable,
never-co