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 or at least write! But neither tongue nor right hand would obey her will, in spite of all the nursing, in spite of all the scientific treatment!

The baroness endured and suffered with a manly, even heroic, spirit; never for a moment giving up the hope of eventual recovery. She was like a lion in a cage, that dreamt of palms, giraffes, antelopes, and moonlight nights in the wild deserts, hoping to regain once more his golden freedom.

The first month passed. In the castle and on the estate people got used to the sad condition of the old baroness. Her son took the reins into his own hands, and everybody breathed more freely; just as when the fresh breath of spring comes into the close atmosphere of shut-up rooms.

The young baron was a general favourite: he was more kindly and generous to the poor, and less supercilious to the farmers, than his mother, who always kept in her mind the former times of bondage; and he did not embitter every hardly earned morsel of bread to the under officials with the wormwood of pride and haughtiness.

Shortly after the misfortune which befell his mother, he summoned all the persons employed on his estate, and said to them simply, “Gentlemen, work honestly for the benefit of my estate, and attend conscientiously to my interests, and I shall honestly take care of you and your families.”

This principle was generally approved of, and the management of the estate was by no means less successful than in his mother’s time; on the contrary, all those employed, feeling themselves no longer held down with an iron hand, became freer, more at ease and less