Indeed, in her grief for one son, and her
anxiety for the other, perhaps it was this letter that first made her
fully realize the drift of those earnest words of Friedel's
respecting his father.
Meantime the mother and son were alone together, with much of
suffering and of sorrow, yet with a certain tender comfort in the
being all in all to one another, with none to intermeddle with their
mutual love and grief. It was to Christina as if something of
Friedel's sweetness had passed to his brother in his patient
helplessness, and that, while thus fully engrossed with him, she had
both her sons in one. Nay, in spite of all the pain, grief, and
weariness, these were times when both dreaded any change, and the
full recovery, when not only would the loss of Friedel be every
moment freshly brought home to his brother, but when Ebbo would go in
quest of his father.
For on this the young Baron had fixed his mind as a sacred duty, from
the moment he had seen that life was to be his lot. He looked on his
neglect of indications of the possibility of his father's life in the
light of a sin that had led to all his disasters, and not only
regarded the intended search as a token of repentance, but as a
charge bequeathed to him by his less selfish brother.
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