"But I have some for the beautiful lady," said Katharine, proudly. "I was right in thinking that high-born people must eat sometimes, and are not refreshed merely by their magnificent dresses and the splendor surrounding them, but are obliged to put something into their mouths, like us common people. Look, there is Martha with the breakfast!" And, in truth, Martha was just entering the door, holding in her hand a pitcher filled with fresh, smoking milk.
Katharine took an earthen cup from the shelf near the hearth, and filled it to the brim. "Now drink," she said, handing the cup to the countess; "it will strengthen you; it is splendid goat's milk, so fine and warm that city folks never get any thing like it; no fire warmed this milk, but God, who gave life and warmth to my dear goat. Drink, then, in His name!"
"No refreshment has ever been presented to me in so cordial a manner," said the countess, nodding kindly to the old peasant-woman. "I shall carefully remember your heart-felt words, and drink the milk in the name of the good Lord, but only provided you, Countess Truchsess, and you, too, M. von Schiaden, can likewise have a cup of this splendid milk."
"We shall have some," said the Countess von Truchsess; "please your—, the gracious countess will please drink her milk." The countess placed the cup on the window-sill without having touched it with her lips. "You see I am waiting," she said—"make haste!" She herself then hastened to the cupboard near the hearth, and took from it two small earthen jars, which she handed to Katharine to fill with milk.
"And have you not something to eat with the milk, my dear woman?" asked M. von Schladen, in a low voice.
"I have but a loaf of stale brown bread," said Katharine, "but I am afraid it will be too hard for the fine teeth of the countess."
"Give it to me at all events," said the countess, "my teeth will be able to manage it."
Old Katharine took a large loaf of bread from the cupboard, cut off a thick slice, and presented it on the bright pewter plate, the principal ornament of her house. The countess broke off a piece, and, leaning against the window, commenced eating her frugal breakfast.
The Countess von Truchsess and the high-chamberlain had retired to the hearth to partake of the strange and unwonted food. Katharine and Martha stood at the door, staring admiringly at the lady who was leaning against the window, and just lifting the stale brown bread to her mouth. She did not notice that the two were looking at her; she was gazing thoughtfully at the large bedstead in which she had passed the night in tears and prayers. Her glance then turned to the piece of bread which she held in her hand, and from which she had vainly tried to eat. The bread and the bed reminded her of an hour long past, when she was a happy queen—an hour when her mental eye descried the future, and the words of a beautiful and melancholy song aroused in her anxious forebodings, and seemed to her a prophecy of her own destiny. As she thought of those golden days, her eyes filled with tears, which rolled over her cheeks and trickled down on the bread in her hand. "Oh," she murmured, "now I shall be able to eat it; I am softening it with my tears!" And to conceal them she averted her head, and looked out at the forest, whose lofty pines were adorned with snow-wreaths. Her tears gradually ceased—she drew the large diamond ring from her finger, and, using the pointed stone as a pen, wrote rapidly on the window-pane.
Old Katharine and Martha stared at her in dismay; the characters appearing on the glass filled them with astonishment and superstitious awe, and they thought the handsome lady who knew how to write with a precious stone might after all be a fairy, who, persecuted by some evil sorcerer, had fled thither into the dark forest, and was writing some exorcising words on the window-pane, lest her enemy should pursue and have power over her.