Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1908-08-06

women, and l could talk cheertly |
again, except when the memory Of !,
past times came back to me, and then |
I thanked God that l had once expert !
enced such happiness. One day | was
sent for to the castle-the baron was
dying. l nursed him for five long
weeks, day and night. | closed his
eyes, which looked at me gratefully
once more, and so repaid small part
of the debt, at least, which owed for
the old happy days I had lived
through
1.-The baroness was inconsolable,
and in her grief she chung to me. At
the funeral | saw Bergen and Ruth
again, both with their sons. Willy,
now Prince Bodresky, was a hand
some youth, dark, fiery, and eager,
while Wilhelm Won Bergen had his IA
theirs ways-simple and stratghtfor-
ward, but knowing very well what he
was about. Ruth was the same CO.
quettish, elegant woman as in former
years, but life Of constant excite
ment and variety had brushed off the
bloom prematurely from her wonder
full beauty; sometimes, in spite Of her
thirty years, she looked old and worn.
She did not take the slightest notice
of me, and she carefully kept her son
away from me, which caused me some
pain. The handsome youth was shy
and strange toward me. Bergen was
all the more cordial; we talked
great deal about Hannah and Of that
old happy time; we remembered Eber-
hardt, too, and l cried myself nearly
i'll while he was there-he knew how
much | had suffered.
Soon after the funeral, at Ruth's
desire, efforts were made to sell Ben
deleben. Frau Won Bendeleben was to
go to Vienna to live, as the Prince
Bodresky did not care to live on the
estate. Bergen had not sufficient cap
itaI to admit Of his taking it, and, be-
sides, he was too thorough a soldier;
and they could not wait for the child
rem to grow up, Ruth thought, and in
the meantime careless stewards would
have ruined the property. So it was
not long before the mistress Of Ben
deleben departed for brilliant Vienna
with her daughter, the princess, and
a comfortable tradesman occupied the
aristocratic old house with the proud
escutcheOn of the BendelebenS. In
the elegant lofty rooms, where for
centuries generations of Bendelebens
had laughed and grieyed, there now
roamed a flock of sturdy, f1aXen-
haired children, who shot their ar
rows at the gay gods on the ceiling of
the dining room, till the worthy father
and his good wife, disturbed by the
sight of the mutilated noses and the
missing eyes, which seemed to look
down at them reproachfUlly, had the
Whitewater come and wash over all
the gay gods of Olympus, and the
Via la joie' into the bargain. All, was
there every really a time when one
could cry 'Vive Ia joie?'
II felt a pang Of pain in my heart
when I saw strangers roaming about
the place where I had spent my hap
piest days. The old park with its quiet
hooks, it's velyety grass-plots, seemed
desecrated when l met the whole
flock of wild children one day running
about, and the ducks and geese from
the poultry-yards walking about in it,
Annie Marie had gone away with her
husband long ago, for the new owner
needed no gardeners. The order and
quiet of former days were things Of
the past.
"Ah, if the baron could have seen
it! He would not have rested in his
grave, and would have cursed the
daughter who had sold his family
estate. But so it goes; the very child
of whose aristocratic ideas he was so
proud had sold to the highest bidder
the home of her ancestors, in the
possession of which the fathers
whole heart was bound up.
" Why did he not provide against
it in his will?' said Frau RenneT.
"Ah, yes, why?
Because he would have believed
anything of his aristocratic daughter
sooner than that she would have done
this thing.
And so we lived on for long years,
life in which absolutely nothing hap
pened, trying to make ourselves use
full. I taught the pastors little child
rem and helped the young wife in her
household. Then my good old Frau
Renner's health broke down, and,
after long consideration, her anxious
son thought it would be better for her
to live in the city, where she could
have a physician at airy moment.
I1v- I
was only too glad to do it, for then l
was near his grave, which hitherto l
had been able to visit so seldom.
This made my sojourn in the close
town a comfort to me, and so we
moved into this same apartment. The
owner has been changed three times,
but the tenant has remained through
it all, and she has grown old and gray
in this room. Here I closed the eyes Of
my old friend, after a long Illness, |
and I tried to make the evening of
her life cheerful by my tender care,
and hearty sympathy in her pleasures
and her interests.
And after her deatheI was always
glad, as I had been in her lifetime,
when the children and the grandchild-
ren came from the quiet little vii
Iage; otherwise have dropped all my
and I have not tried to
make any here in the city.
q always go to the church-yard |
every day. On lovely summer even I
ings take my work, and sit down on
the little bench by his grave. which l