The Opposite House: A Novel — page 233: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

228 Lhe Opposite House. nature; and Baroness von Rotterswyl, seeing this only too plainly, decided, though with a heavy heart, to renounce her long-cherished desire to see Marie mistress of Castle Raveneck. The old baroness was strangely changed since her return from Wiesbaden. Brand’s end had made a far deeper impression upon her than any one would have imagined, and the pallid death-mask, which had lain at her feet, seemed to have re- opened old wounds which were now no longer closed with icy pride, but permitted to bleed in mild, beneficent tears, shed upon the breast of her own child. Marie scarcely recognized her mother. She could not understand this sudden revulsion of feeling, but she suspected that the hour had come which made the ice melt and the buds of love and tender- ness in the heart unfold. The relation between the mother and the daughter grew warmer. They began to comprehend each other, and the baroness obtainted many a glimpse of her child’s soul, which made her seriously consider how to drive the cloud from her brow. She read with more than usual interest the news of the army corps to which Ger- rald belonged, and glanced with evident haste and anxiety over the list of the losses of the German officers. Ascending the steps leading to the little bow- ComicbdoOoks.c©