That everything which she knew to be dear to Edward received especial care from her may be supposed.  And why should she not hope that he himself would now soon come back again; and that, when present, he would show himself grateful for all the care and pains which she had taken for him in his absence?

But there was also a far different employment which she took upon herself in his service; she had undertaken the principal charge of the child, whose immediate attendant it was all the easier for her to be, as they had determined not to put it into the hands of a nurse, but to bring it up themselves by hand with milk and water.  In the beautiful season it was much out of doors, enjoying the free air, and Ottilie liked best to take it out herself, to carry the unconscious sleeping infant among the flowers and blossoms which should one day smile so brightly on its childhood—­among the young shrubs and plants, which, by their youth, seemed designed to grow up with the young lord to their after-stature.  When she looked about her, she did not hide from herself to what a high position that child was born:  far and wide, wherever the eye could see, all would one day belong to him.  How desirable, how necessary it must therefore be, that it should grow up under the eyes of its father and its mother, and renew and strengthen the union between them!

Ottilie saw all this so clearly that she represented it to herself as conclusively decided, and for herself, as concerned with it, she never felt at all.  Under this fair heaven, by this bright sunshine, at once it became clear to her, that her love if it would perfect itself, must become altogether unselfish; and there were many moments in which she believed it was an elevation which she had already attained.  She only desired the well-being of her friend.  She fancied herself able to resign him, and never to see him any more, if she could only know that he was happy.  The one only determination which she formed for herself was never to belong to another.

They had taken care that the autumn should be no less brilliant than the spring.  Sun-flowers were there, and all the other plants which are never tired of blossoming in autumn, and continue boldly on into the cold; asters especially were sown in the greatest abundance, and scattered about in all directions to form a starry heaven upon the earth.

FROM OTTILIE’S DIARY

“Any good thought which we have read, anything striking which we have heard, we commonly enter in our diary; but if we would take the trouble, at the same time, to copy out of our friends’ letters the remarkable observations, the original ideas, the hasty words so pregnant in meaning, which we might find in them, we should then be rich indeed.  We lay aside letters never to read them again, and at last we destroy them out of discretion, and so disappears the most beautiful, the most immediate breath of life, irrecoverably for ourselves and for others.  I intend to make amends in future for such neglect.”