"And you," said the colonel to Caroline and her mother, "must prepare to remove at once. Your lodgings are so confined! But you will find it very different in the house which you are to occupy in Buchenhaim. The dwelling is large and commodious, with a fine garden attached, well stocked with cherry trees. Next Monday you will be there, and this very day you must start. What a happy feast we shall have there!--not like the hasty meal you gave the hussar-officer amid the thunder of cannon and the blazing roofs of Rebenheim. Do not forget to have cherries, dear Caroline, for dessert; I think they will be fully ripe by that time."
With these words the colonel hurried away to escape the thanks of this good family, and, in truth, to conceal his own tears. So rapidly did he disappear that Ehrenberg could scarcely accompany him down the steps.
"Oh, Caroline," said the happy father when he returned, "who could have imagined that the little cherry tree I planted in the flower-garden the day you were born would ever produce such good fruit?"
"It was the providence of God," exclaimed the mother, clasping her hands. "I remember distinctly the first time the blossoms appeared on that tree, when you and I went out to look at it, and little Caroline, then an infant in my arms, was so much delighted with the white flowers. We resolved then to educate our daughter piously, and prayed fervently to God that she, who was then as full of promise as the blossoms on the tree, might by his grace one day be the prop of our old age. That prayer is now fulfilled beyond our fondest anticipations. Praise for ever be to the name of God!"
Edith declared that this was one of the very sweetest stories Miss Harson had ever told them, and Clara and Malcolm were equally well pleased with it.
"Were those cherries like ours?" asked Clara.
"They were larger and finer than ours generally are, I think," was the reply, "being the great northern cherry, or bird-cherry, of Europe, which grows in Germany to great perfection. And the little German girl's plate of cherries, which she so generously urged upon a stranger when food of any kind was so scarce, is a beautiful illustration of the first verse of the eleventh chapter of Proverbs: 'Cast thy bread upon the waters; for thou shalt find it after many days.'"