upon my heart; for I cannot comprehend the arrangements of Thy
providence, even while I bow to the decree of Thy almighty wisdom and
power.” And God did enlighten her heart.
A sudden flash of thought, like a ray of mercy, recalled her dream of the
preceding night; all was vividly represented before her. She remembered the
words and wishes she had then expressed, that what was best for her and for
Rudy she might piously submit to.
“Woe is me,” she said; “was the germ of sin really in my heart? was my
dream a glimpse into the course of my future life, whose thread must be
violently broken to rescue me from sin? Oh, miserable creature that I am!”
Thus she sat lamenting in the dark night, while through the deep stillness
the last words of Rudy seemed to ring in her ears. “This earth has nothing
more to bestow.” Words, uttered in the fulness of joy, were again heard
amid the depths of sorrow.
Years have passed since this sad event happened. The shores of the
peaceful lake still smile in beauty. The vines are full of luscious grapes.
Steamboats, with waving flags, pass swiftly by. Pleasure-boats, with their
swelling sails, skim lightly over the watery mirror, like white butterflies.
The railway is opened beyond Chillon, and goes far into the deep valley of
the Rhone. At every station strangers alight with red-bound guide-books in
their hands, in which they read of every place worth seeing. They visit
Chillon, and observe on the lake the little island with the three acacias, and
then read in their guide-book the story of the bridal pair who, in the year
1856, rowed over to it. They read that the two were missing till the next
morning, when some people on the shore heard the despairing cries of the
bride, and went to her assistance, and by her were told of the bridegroom’s
fate.
But the guide-book does not speak of Babette’s quiet life afterwards with
her father, not at the mill-strangers dwell there now-but in a pretty house in
a row near the station. On many an evening she sits at her window, and
looks out over the chestnut-trees to the snow-capped mountains on which
