A SISTER'S LOVE
A NOVEL
BY W. HEIMBURG
TRANSLATED BY
MARGARET P. WATERMAN
CHICAGO:
M. A. DONOHUE & CO.
407-429 DEARBORN ST.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
Lives of Famous Men
A SISTER'S LOVE.
CHAPTER I.
A severe storm had been raging all day, and now, in the approachingtwilight, seemed as if it would overleap all bounds in its wildconfusion. Straight from the North Sea, over the broad Lüneburg heath,it came rushing along, and beat against the gray walls of themanor-house, shook the great elms in the garden, tossed about thebushes, and blew from the bare branches the last yellow leaf yet sparedthem by the November frost.
The great castle-like building, inhabited for centuries by the VonHegewitz family, looked dismal and gloomy under the cloud-laden sky; inalmost spectral gloom it lay there, with its sharply pointed gables, itsround tower, and heavy buttresses supporting the walls.
If did not always look thus, this old manor-house; in summer it was verypicturesque behind its green trees, the golden sunshine lying on itsslate roof, the pointed gables sharply outlined against the blue sky,and the gray walls, framed by huge, old oaks, reflected in the brownwater of the pond. Beside it lay the farm-buildings and the houses ofthe village, whose shingled roofs emerged in their turn from the foliageof the fruit-trees. Far out into the Mark country extended the view,over fields of waving corn, over green meadows and purple heath, boundedon the horizon by the dark line of a pine forest. A narrow strip of pinewoods, besides, lay to the north, extending nearly to the garden, and onhot summer afternoons an almost intoxicating fragrance was wafted fromit toward the quiet house.
Within it was still a real, old-fashioned German house; for there weredim corridors and deep niches, great vaulted rooms and large alcoves,little staircases with steep steps worn by many feet, and curious lowvaulted doors. A flight of steps would lead quite unexpectedly from oneroom into the next, and here and there a door, instead of leading out ofa room, opened, to one's surprise, into a huge closet