MAX and BERTHA.

Good night!

They go out with ELSIE.

URSULA, spinning.

She is a strange and wayward child,
That Elsie of ours. She looks so old,

And thoughts and fancies weird and wild
Seem of late to have taken hold

Of her heart, that was once so docile and mild!

She is like all girls.

GOTTLIEB.

URSULA.

Ah no, forsooth!

· Unlike all I have ever seen.

For she has visions and strange dreams,

And in all her words and

ways, she seems

Much older than she is in truth.

Who would think her but fourteen ?

And there has been of late such a change!

My heart is heavy with fear and doubt

That she may not live till the year is out.

She is so strange, so strange, so strange!

GOTTLIEB.

I am not troubled with any such fear;

She will live and thrive for many a year.

ELSIE'S CHAMBER.

Night. ELSIE praying.

ELSIE.

My Redeemer and my Lord,
I beseech thee, I entreat thee,
Guide me in each act and word,

That hereafter I may meet thee,
Watching, waiting, hoping, yearning,

With my lamp well trimmed and burning!

Interceding

With these bleeding

Wounds upon thy hands and side,

For all who have lived and erred

Thou hast suffered, thou hast died,
Scourged, and mocked, and crucified,

And in the grave hast thou been buried!

If my feeble prayer can reach thee,
O my Saviour, I beseech thee,

Even as thou hast died for me,

More sincerely

Let me follow where thou leadest,

Let me, bleeding as thou bleedest,

Die, if dying I may give

Life to one who asks to live,

And more nearly,

Dying thus, resemble thee!

THE CHAMBER OF GOTTLIEB AND URSULA.

Midnight. ELSIE standing by their bedside, weeping.

GOTTLIEB.

THE wind is roaring; the rushing rain

Is loud upon roof and window-pane,

As if the Wild Huntsman of Rodenstein,
Boding evil to me and mine,

Were abroad to-night with his ghostly train!
In the brief lulls of the tempest wild,

The dogs howl in the yard; and hark!

Some one is sobbing in the dark,

Here in the chamber!

ELSIE.

It is I.