"There are but seven steps yet--right foot, sleep; left foot, get up; or, taking it the other way, the two together make one step."
The last days of waiting seemed long, even to me. Ludwig had particularly requested that I should not go to meet him.
On the night before his arrival, I suddenly felt so oppressed that I thought I should die.
I heard footsteps on the stairs, and, afterward, the breathing of some one in front of my door. Assuredly, he has wished to prevent my worrying--he is here already.
"Who is there?"
"It is I,--Rothfuss. I thought to myself that you would not be able to sleep, and then it suddenly occurred to me that everybody says I am so entertaining that I can put any one to sleep, and so I thought--"
Rothfuss' allusion to this peculiar art made me laugh so heartily that I felt quite well again. After he left the room, I was obliged to laugh again at the thought of what he had said; and then I fell asleep, and did not awake until the bright daylight shone into my room.
CHAPTER IV.
May 28, 1870.
"Good-morning, dear Henry," she said to herself, this day forty-six years ago, when she awoke on the last morning she spent in her own chamber.