count, asked him if he would let me have the
child to nurse. 'Have her !' he said, savagely,
'yes, and keep her too take the little screaming
wretch away, and never let me see its hated
face again!' And so Wanda (she was named
Wanda after her mother) was brought to me,
and I nursed her at the same time with my own
Wilhelm, who had been born just three weeks
before.

"The countess never recovered that shock;
fainting-fit succeeded fainting-fit for days together,
and when at last they left her, her wits
were gone. She was very gentle and harmless,
but hardly ever spoke, and seemed to have gone
into a kind of hopeless melancholy. I saw her
once when she was still quite young; we had been
staying with my mother at Wallendorf, and we
drove through the grounds and past the castle
on our road back to Altheim. My husband
showed her to me—she was sitting at an open
window on an upper floor of the house, looking
out over the long avenue and the dreary flats
beyond; she was dressed in black, and was
leaning back propped up in her chair. She
looked very fearful—like an old blighted child
with a quantity of white hair hanging down,
all uncombed and uncared for, about her face
and neck. I did not sleep for many a night
after seeing her, for thinking of that dreadful
withered child's face, with its mad, miserable
eyes, and the unnatural snow-white hair. As
we went by, she jumped and danced, and
screamed to us, and her women had trouble
to hold her. She had never gone over the
threshold of her door from the hour of her
confinement, and passed her whole life at that
window, looking out over the long avenue to
the miles and miles of level plain that stretched
beyond, as if she expected to see, as a speck,
from far away the carriage coming nearer and
nearer with long lost friends, who would take
her from this miserable place. But she had
been for some years out of the world, and no
one remembered her but death. My husband
saw her die—no one else was near to help her:
she was taken with some sort of fit one morning,
and they sent for him. He saw there was
no hope, and thought it was his duty to write
and warn the count, who was at Vienna, that
she could not last long. One dreary night in
December, my husband was watching with her,
and so was the good Liesel, the nurse he had
brought for her from the town, for she had no
proper attendants, only some of the peasants
belonging to the estate, to wait upon her. The
count had sent no answer, and they thought
he might arrive at any moment. It was just
about one in the morning, when a great gust of
wind rattled down all the chimneys, and the
dogs began suddenly to bark and clamour, and
my husband fancied he heard the sound of
wheels driving up to the door. He looked
round at the countess, and saw that she had
heard it too, and that in some strange way it
troubled and distressed her; for he could hear
her heart beat, and she turned her poor eyes
upon him, full of an anguish that it went to
his soul to look upon. He sent Liesel down to
see if any one had arrived, and took hold of the
poor lady's hand to comfort, and quiet her; but
she was getting more and more agitated, and
gasped fearfully for breath which she did not
seem able to get. A quick heavy tread came
up the stairs, the door was thrown open, and
Count Berchtold entered. She knew him at
once, thongh she had not set eyes on him for
all those years, and in her fright and agony she
flung herself wildly out of bed before they
could stop her, and fell upon the floor. My
husband rushed to pick her up, but she just
gave one struggle and a little sigh, and with it
her dismal life had passed away. The count
gave orders for a magnificent funeral; but he
did not stay to see them executed. All the
carriages and horses from that castle, and all
the carriages and horses from the other castle
near Wallendorf, came out for the occasion :
and there were torches and music to carry her
to the family vault in the grounds. Numbers
streamed out from the town to look at the
sight. I went with my husband and my brother-in-law
and his wife, but we were all of us
strangers as it were, and it was sad to see the
long procession of mourning coaches and family
coaches going along stately and slow, quite
empty. I have often wondered if any of her
family ever knew the sad end she had made so
far away from them all.

"Soon after it pleased God to take my husband
from me, and my means were much restricted
in consequence; the children, too, were
growing up, and becoming a greater expense
to me, and, as I told you, we gave up living
in the town, and came back to settle once
more near my native village of Wallendorf.
Wanda was eleven years old then, and William
the same age; Elizabeth was thirteen, and my
eldest boy, Francis, was fifteen. Wanda was
a heavy charge to me, for the curse which
had fallen upon the mother had descended to
the child. She was insane from her birth.
The count took no heed of her; he never came
near the place, but he paid us handsomely for
our care of her, and Mr. Hartmann, through
whom the money passed, was exact with the
remittances. She grew up to be even lovelier
than her mother; there was nothing alarming
about her want of reason, and only to look at
her no one would have guessed that anything
was much amiss with her. She did not look
then as she does now; she had a brilliant colour
then. In her mind she remained always like a
little child; she understood nothing except the
simplest things, and was quite unteachable:
generally docile, but if anything angered her she
would take fits of silence that sometimes lasted
long enough to make me uneasy, and occasionally
she would have bouts of rage, in which
she would beat herself against the walls, and be
more like a wild animal than a human creature;
but this was never often, and, with the years,
grew of less and less frequent occurrence. She
was afraid of me, and desired to please me, and
she generally obeyed Elizabeth pretty readily