driven by this evil power into the dark night, a sport of these malicious potencies which pursue men step by step, especially on such occasions.  The living God alone knows what she must have seen that night.  Nothing good, else one would not become dumb.  Old legends and tales were revived, each more horrible than the other.  Hundreds of instances were given to prove that this was nothing new in the gasse.  Despite this explanation, it is remarkable that the people did not believe that the young woman was dumb.  The most thought that her power of speech had been paralyzed by some awful fright, but that with time it would be restored.  Under this supposition they called her “Veile the Silent.”

There is a kind of human eloquence more telling, more forcible than the loudest words, than the choicest diction—­the silence of woman!  Ofttimes they cannot endure the slightest vexation, but some great, heart-breaking sorrow, some pain from constant renunciation, self-sacrifice, they suffer with sealed lips—­as if, in very truth, they were bound with bars of iron.

It would be difficult to fully describe that long “silent” life of the young woman.  It is almost impossible to cite more than one incident.  Veile accompanied her husband to his home, that house resplendent with that gold and silver which had infatuated her.  She was, to be sure, the “first” woman in the gasse; she had everything in abundance.  Indeed, the world supposed that she had but little cause for complaint.  “Must one have everything?” was sometimes queried in the gasse.  “One has one thing; another, another.”  And, according to all appearances, the people were right.  Veile continued to be the beautiful, blooming woman.  Her penance of silence did not deprive her of a single charm.  She was so very happy, indeed, that she did not seem to feel even the pain of her punishment.  Veile could laugh and rejoice, but never did she forget to be silent.  The seemingly happy days, however, were only qualified to bring about the proper time of trials and temptations.  The beginning was easy enough for her, the middle and end were times of real pain.  The first years of their wedded life were childless.  “It is well,” the people in the gasse said, “that she has no children, and God has rightly ordained it to be so.  A mother who cannot talk to her child, that would be something awful!” Unexpectedly to all, she rejoiced one day in the birth of a daughter.  And when that affectionate young creature, her own offspring, was laid upon her breast, and the first sounds were uttered by its lips—­that nameless, eloquent utterance of an infant—­she forgot herself not; she was silent!

She was silent also when from day to day that child blossomed before her eyes into fuller beauty.  Nor had she any words for it when, in effusions of tenderness, it stretched forth its tiny arms, when in burning fever it sought for the mother’s hand.  For days—­yes, weeks—­together she watched at its bedside.  Sleep never visited her eyes.  But she ever remembered her penance.