"Here it is," he said, taking out a piece of folded paper.
It contained the thing he had described--a scrap of fringe composed of
crimson and yellow twist, about two inches in length.
"And those other things?" I said, peering into the secret drawer with a
child's inquisitiveness. "Have they a history, too?"
Monsieur Maurice hesitated--took them out--sighed--and said, somewhat
reluctantly:--
"You may see them, little Gretchen, if you will. Yes; they, too, have their
history--but let it be. We have had enough sad stories for to-day."
Those other things, as I had called them, were a withered rose in a little
cardboard box, and a miniature of a lady in a purple morocco case.
5
It so happened that the Winter this year was unusually severe, not only at
Bruehl and the parts about Cologne, but throughout all the Rhine country.
Heavy snows fell at Christmas and lay unmelted for weeks upon the ground.
Long forgotten sleighs were dragged out from their hiding places and put
upon the road, not only for the transport of goods, but for the conveyance
of passengers. The ponds in every direction and all the smaller streams
were fast frozen. Great masses of dirty ice, too, came floating down the
Rhine, and there were rumours of the great river being quite frozen over
somewhere up in Switzerland, many hundred miles nearer its source.
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