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rocking-chair, the other on a lower stool; both wore deep mourning
of crape and bombazeen, which sombre garb singularly set off very fair
necks and faces: a large old pointer dog rested its massive head on
the knee of one girl- in the lap of the other was cushioned a black
cat.
A strange place was this humble kitchen for such occupants! Who
were they? They could not be the daughters of the elderly person at
the table; for she looked like a rustic, and they were all delicacy
and cultivation. I had nowhere seen such faces as theirs: and yet,
as I gazed on them, I seemed intimate with every lineament. I cannot
call them handsome- they were too pale and grave for the word: as they
each bent over a book, they looked thoughtful almost to severity. A
stand between them supported a second candle and two great volumes, to
which they frequently referred, comparing them, seemingly, with the
smaller books they held in their hands, like people consulting a
dictionary to aid them in the task of translation. This scene was as
silent as if all the figures had been shadows and the firelit
apartment a picture: so hushed was it, I could hear the cinders fall
from the grate, the clock tick in its obscure corner; and I even
fancied I could distinguish the click-click of the woman's
knitting-needles. When, therefore, a voice broke the strange stillness
at last, it was audible enough to me.
'Listen, Diana,' said one of the absorbed students; 'Franz and
old Daniel are together in the night-time, and Franz is telling a
dream from which he has awakened in terror- listen!' And in a low
voice she read something, of which not one word was intelligible to
me; for it was in an unknown tongue- neither French nor Latin. Whether
it were Greek or German I could not tell.
'That is strong,' she said, when she had finished: 'I relish it.'
The other girl, who had lifted her head to listen to her sister,
repeated, while she gazed at the fire, a line of what had been read.
At a later day, I knew the language and the book; therefore, I will
here quote the line: though, when I first heard it, it was only like a
stroke on sounding brass to me- conveying no meaning:-
'"Da trat hervor Einer, anzusehen wie die Sternen Nacht." Good!
good!' she exclaimed, while her dark and deep eye sparkled. 'There you
have a dim and mighty archangel fitly set before you! The line is
worth a hundred pages of fustian. "Ich wage die Gedanken in der Schale
meines Zornes und die Werke mit dem Gewichte meines Grimms." I like
it!'
Both were again silent.
'Is there ony country where they talk i' that way?' asked the old
woman, looking up from her knitting.
'Yes, Hannah- a far larger country than England, where they talk in
no other way.'
'Well, for sure case, I knawn't how they can understand t'one
t'other: and if either o' ye went there, ye could tell what they said,
I guess?'
'We could probably tell something of what they said, but not all-