At last she laid her hand on the lid to close it; but hesitated and took up a packet of letters that had lain amid several gold and silver coins, given by godmothers and godfathers, modest trinkets, and a withered rose.

Drawing a chair up to the table, the young wife seated herself and began to read.  She knew these letters well enough.  A noble, promising youth had addressed them to her sister, his betrothed bride.  They were dated from Jena, whither he had gone to complete his studies in jurisprudence.  Every word expressed the lover’s ardent longing, every line was pervaded by the passion that had filled the writer’s heart.  Often the prose of the young scholar, who as a pupil of Doctor Groot had won his bride in Delft, rose to a lofty flight.

While reading, Maria saw in imagination Jacoba’s pretty face, and the handsome, enthusiastic countenance of her bridegroom.  She remembered their gay wedding, her brother-in-law’s impetuous friend, so lavishly endowed with every gift of nature, who had accompanied him to Holland to be his groomsman, and at parting had given her the rose which lay before her in the little casket.  No voice had ever suited hers so well; she had never heard language so poetical from any other lips, never had eyes that sparkled like the young Thuringian noble’s looked into hers.

After the wedding Georg von Dornberg returned home and the young couple went to Haarlem.  She had heard nothing from the young foreigner, and her sister and her husband were soon silenced forever.  Like most of the inhabitants of Haarlem, they were put to death by the Spanish destroyers at the capture of the noble, hapless city.  Nothing was left of her beloved sister except a faithful memory of her, and her betrothed bridegroom’s letters, which she now held in her hand.

They expressed love, the true, lofty love, that can speak with the tongues of angels and move mountains.  There lay her husband’s letter.  Miserable scrawl!  She shrank from opening it again, as she laid the beloved mementoes back into the box, yet her breast heaved as she thought of Peter.  She knew too that she loved him, and that his faithful heart belonged to her.  But she was not satisfied, she was not happy, for he showed her only tender affection or paternal kindness, and she wished to be loved differently.  The pupil, nay the friend of the learned Groot, the young wife who had grown up in the society of highly educated men, the enthusiastic patriot, felt that she was capable of being more, far more to her husband, than he asked.  She had never expected gushing emotions or high-strung phrases from the grave man engaged in vigorous action, but believed he would understand all the lofty, noble sentiments stirring in her soul, permit her to share his struggles and become the partner of his thoughts and feelings.  The meagre letter received to-day again taught her that her anticipations were not realized.