due to the most natural of all causes; but these facts were not patent
to the observer, and for reasons which will presently appear she
herself would have been the last to mention them.  There was something,
too, in the look of her blue eyes, shaded by long brown lashes which
had retained their colour, that forbade any expression of sympathy.  The
least experienced of mankind would have seen at a glance that she was
the proudest of women, and would have guessed that she must be one of
the most reticent.  She moved and spoke as though Sigmundskron were
still what it had been in former days, and she had brought up her only
child to be as much like herself, as it was possible that anything so
young and fair could resemble what was already a type of age and
gravity. 

Poverty is too insignificant a word to describe the state in which the
mother and daughter lived, and had lived for many years.  They had no
means of subsistence whatever beyond the pension accorded to the widow
of Lieutenant von Sigmundskron, 'fallen on the field of honour,' as the
official report had expressed it, in the murderous war with France.  He
had been the last of his name and at the time of his death had no
relations living; two years earlier he had married a girl as penniless