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must fall on her neck, no one could do that, for it might have hurt her. But it seemed to me that I could pray for her from the very depths of my heart, that she might be released from her sufferings.

room.

One warm spring day she was again brought into our She looked very pale, but her eyes were brighter and deeper than ever, and she sat on her couch and asked us to come near to her. "This is my birthday," she said, "and I have been confirmed this morning. Now it is quite possible," she continued, looking at her father with a smile on her face," that God will soon call me to himself, although I would gladly stay much longer with you. But when the time comes that I must leave you, I would not like to be wholly forgotten, and so I have brought a ring for each of you, which you must wear now on your forefinger, and when you grow larger, you can wear it on one of the others, till it comes to fit the little finger; but you must wear it there all your life."

With these words she took the five rings which she wore on her fingers, drawing one off after the other, looking all the time so sad, and at the same time so lovingly, that I shut my eyes to keep from crying. She gave the first ring to her eldest brother, and kissed him, and then the second and the third to the two princesses, and the fourth to the youngest prince, kissing them all as she gave the rings to them. I stood by looking steadily at her white hand, and I saw that she had still a ring on her finger; but she took a reclining posture and seemed exhausted. Then my eye met hers, and as the eyes of a child speak so plainly, she could not but be aware what was passing within me. I would much rather not have had the last ring, for I felt that I was a stranger, that I did not belong to her, that she did not love me so much as her brothers and sisters. At this thought, something gave me a sudden pain in my breast, as if a vein, had opened or a nerve been cut, and I knew not which way to look to conceal my distress. But

she raised herself up, laid her hand upon my forehead, and looked so deeply into my eyes that I felt as if there were no thought within me which she could not see. She drew the last ring slowly from her finger and gave it to me, saying: "I meant to take this with me when I leave you all, but it is better that thou shouldst wear it, and think of me when I am no longer with you. Read the words which are writThou hast a wild and a

ten on the ring: 'As God wills.' tender heart; may life tame, but not harden it." And saying this, she kissed me as she had her brothers, and gave me the ring.

What passed within me on this, I cannot distinctly tell. I had grown up already to be a boy, and the soft beauty of the suffering angel had not been without its attraction to my young heart. I loved her as a boy can love, - and they love with a depth, truth, and purity which but few can retain in adolescence and maturity. But I thought that she belonged to those strangers to whom one must not say that they love. The serious words which she said to me I scarcely heard; I only felt that her spirit was as near to mine as those of two human beings can be to each other. All bitterness had vanished from my heart; I felt myself no longer alone, not strange, not excluded, but by her, with her, and in her. Then I thought that it would be a sacrifice for her to give me the ring, and that she would like better to take it with her to the grave. And then a feeling came to my heart, that overpowered all other feelings, and I said, with a hesitating voice: "Thou must keep the ring, if thou wouldst give it to me; for what is thine, that is mine." She looked at me an instant with surprise, and musingly. Then she took the ring, replaced it on her finger, kissed me again on the forehead, and said to me in a low voice, "Thou dost not know what thou sayest. Learn to understand thyself, and thou wilt be happy, and make many others happy."

FOURTH RECOLLECTION.

Every life has its years, during which we go forward as on a dusty, uniform alley of poplars, without knowing where we are, and of which nothing remains in our memory but the melancholy thoughts that we have been going on, and have grown older. As long as the river of life flows on tranquilly, it remains the same river, and only the landscape on both shores seems to change. Then come the waterfalls of life. These remain fixed in the memory, and even when we have got far beyond them, and are approaching nearer and nearer to the silent sea of eternity, it is as if we still heard from afar their rushing and raging; indeed, we even feel that the strength of life which remains and urges us forwards, still derives from those waterfalls its strength and nourishment.

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The time of going to school had passed, and the first years of life at the University were over, and many beautiful life-dreams were passed too, but one thing had remained: Faith in God and in man. Life had indeed become very different from what had been thought of it in the childish brain; but everything had gained a higher consecration, and exactly the painful and mysterious circumstances of life had become proofs to me of the omnipresence of the Divine in the earthly. "The least thing does not disturb thee, unless God wills it," this was the short maxim of life-wisdom which I had adopted.

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Now came the summer holidays, and I returned with them to my native place. What a joy is that of reunion! No one has ever explained it, but the seeing again, the finding again, the memory of one's self, is the chief secret of all pleasures and of all enjoyment. What one sees, hears, or tastes for the first time, may be beautiful and good and agreeable; but it is too new, it surprises us, we have not yet enjoyed it tranquilly, and the excitement of the enjoyment is greater than the enjoyment itself. But

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to hear a familiar piece of music again after a long interval, when we thought we had forgotten every note of it, and yet, as fast as they came, to greet each one as an old acquaintance, or to stand again after many years before the Madonna de Son Sisto in Dresden, and then to recall all the feelings which the infinitely spiritual eye of the Ichild have kindled in you from year to year, or even to smell a flower, or taste something pleasant, of which we have never thought since our school-days, all this gives one so deep a joy, that we know not whether we rejoice. more at the present impression or the old recollection. And so when one returns after long years to his native place, the soul unconsciously swims in a sea of memories, and the dancing waves break mysteriously on the shores of long past times. The church-clock strikes, and we feel as if we should be too late for school, and then recover from the fright, and rejoice that this trouble is past. A dog runs across the street; it is the same dog which years ago we went so far out of the way to avoid. There sits the old apple-woman, whose apples once led us into temptation, and which now, in spite of all the dust with which they are covered, we fancy must taste better than any other apples in the world. There they have torn down a house and built a new one, that was the house where our old music-teacher lived: he is dead; but how pleasant it used to be to stand here under the window on a summer day and listen to the good soul, when the hours of daylight had passed, pleasing himself with his fantasiren, and like a steam-pipe letting off all the superfluous steam which had been collecting during the day, with rushing and impetuous sound. And here in this narrow path in the grove, but it seemed then much wider, here it was that, as I was coming home late one evening, I met our neighbor's pretty daughter. I had never ventured before to look at or speak to her; but we boys in the school often talked about her, and called her the handsome girl; and

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when I saw her at a distance coming down the road, I was so delighted I could scarcely believe that I should ever be so near to her. Yes, and here in this wood-walk, which leads to the church-yard, I met her one evening, and she took me by the arm, although we had never before spoken to each other, and said she would go home with me. I believe we neither of us spoke a word the whole way; but I was so happy, that even now, after many years, when I think of it, I could wish the time would come again, and that I could walk home again so silent and so happy with "the handsome girl."

And thus one recollection follows another, until the waves meet over our heads, and a long sigh escapes from our breast, which warns us that by mere thinking we have even forgotten to take breath. Then the whole dreamworld vanishes, as risen shadows at the crowing of the cock.

Now when I passed by the old castle and the lindentrees, and saw the body-guards on their horses, and the high steps, what memories rushed into my soul, and how was everything here altered! It was many years since my visits to the castle had ceased. The Princess was dead, the Prince had resigned his place and gone to Italy; the eldest Prince, whose companion I had been, having assumed the government. His train consisted of young noblemen and officers, whose company was agreeable to him, and whose society had wholly estranged him from his former playmates. Other circumstances contributed to dissolve our youthful friendship. Like every young man when he first learns the needs of the German people, and the crimes of the German government, I had acquired readily some phrases of the liberal party, and these would sound, at the least, somewhat as indecent expressions might in a respectable clergyman's family. In short, for many years I had not once gone up the steps. And yet, there lived in the castle one being whose name I pro

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