On their way home, Aunt Claudine expressed the general feeling, when she said,—
"It seems to me as if these days had been all music and feasting."
"Yes," cried Lina; "one could eat there enough for the whole year."
And they drove on their way laughing.
CHAPTER XII.
FETTERED HANDS UPLIFTED.
The great law of our time, that of the unity of all existence, asserted itself with peculiar and perpetual force in the busy home at Mattenheim. A man of mature years had deliberately concentrated his thoughts upon the movement in the New World; and the destiny of a youth was bound up in the same.
Papers and despatches from America came thicker and faster.
They lived a twofold life, immersed in pressing and manifold business here, but intent, meanwhile, upon the sharp crisis so rapidly approaching in a remote quarter of the world.
Roland devoured the letters and journals in which the so-called slavery-question was discussed. Doctor Fritz wrote doubtfully of Lincoln. The man's nature was so simple, and his faith in men's goodness so thorough, that he feared he would not be decided enough with the chivalry of the South.