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Chap. XXI.
TRAGIC STORY OF A COUNTESS.
319
infancy, how the physician saved his life, but that his
hair turned white from the effects of the deleterious
mixture, I look upon it as a fable. The poison which
was strong enough to turn a child’s hair white would
have first made an end of his existence. Juliana had
a difficult part to play : married in early life to a
widowed monarch, inconsolable and a drunkard,
stepmother to an idiot and a vicious one, mother to an
only son—a lovely child, contrasted with his elder
halfbrother—she fell a prey to the toils of those who desired
to use her as a tool, and to the dictates of her own
ambition. To act rightly in her exceptional position
would have proved difficult to a well-disposed,
right-principled woman : impossible for one of her intriguing
nature. The room in which Juliana breathed her last
is situated on the first floor of the left wing, as you
approach the third and fourth windows from the corps
de bàtiment, looking upon the court.
But the concierge looks mysterious, unlocks a heavy
door, and ushers us into a corridor. We can just
discern the light at the bottom of a narrow quadrangular
well staircase; a door at the top of the landing-place
leads into a bedroom adjoining. “ What a ghostlike
place! ” we exclaim. “ You are right,” he replies,
with a solemnity of manner (quite gave me the creeps):
“ this is a ghostlike staircase, where, in the days of King
Frederic V., a German margravine fell down from
the heights to the cellar below, and died on the spot;
her ghost has since taken possession of these stairs,
and frightens all those who pass by. But you have
all heard the tale of the Countess of Bevern and her sad
death?” No, we had not; had seen her name upon
a closet in the Royal Chapel,—so begged him to relate
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