VII.
Three months later, when his orphans were led by their mother a second time to visit the humble cemetery of the village near Haerlem, they found a little old man writing rapidly, with a piece of charcoal, a few strange words on the stone under which the body of their father, the Minister, had been laid. When they came close to the spot, the old man ceased, and pointed out to them, with an awful look, that which he had written. After the inscription, "John Durer, formerly Minister to his Majesty the Emperor of Germany," the old man had written—
"Heaven requites ingratitude."