I was not granted this gift, rooted in the purest philanthropy, and therefore capable of helping each individual to salvation in his own way. I was exclusively occupied with my own redemption, and, as I had entirely relinquished the idea of a parish, and for the present gave myself no anxiety about any other profession, I spent these three years, so far as my secret yearnings for my lost love permitted, very happily, and daily passed several hours with my teacher and friend, who treated me like a younger brother, and let me share without reserve everything that occupied his mind.

It was inevitable that I should be on the most familiar terms with his children also. From the first I had placed myself on a footing of merry banter, and asked the little girls to call me Uncle Hans. Marie persisted in addressing me as Herr Johannes. Yet an innocent familiarity, like that of blood relations, existed between us, and seemed to continue undisturbed when the child had matured into a maiden, and the eyes of the girl of nineteen gazed into the world with a dreamy earnestness that would have given a person better versed than I in reading the human heart much food for thought.

I noticed that she had lost some of her former vivacity, but was so unsuspicious that I jested with her about it, and drew no inference from her silence and blushes. True, the idea occurred to me that the young bird was fledged and longed to quit the overcrowded nest. But, as I knew with whom she associated, and that none of my employer's guests, who sometimes visited her father, had made the slightest impression upon her, I ascribed her changed demeanor to some anxiety of conscience--she often rummaged among her father's books--rather than any affair of the heart.

That I myself might be the cause never entered my dreams. All vanity had been shorn away with my beautiful fair locks, for with cropped hair I seemed to myself anything but attractive, and, since I had been obliged to atone for the bold hope of making an impression on the heart of the sole object of my adoration, by the keen disappointment of her marriage, I did not consider myself created to be dangerous to any woman.

So, one morning, when I had vainly sought my pastor in his study to return him a volume by David Friedrich Strauss, and on entering the little garden saw Marie sitting on a bench, holding in her lap a dish of green beans which she was preparing for the kitchen, I greeted her with a jest, though I noticed her tearful eyes, and asked if I could sit beside her a moment.

She nodded silently, and moved to make room for me. I commenced an indifferent conversation, but secretly resolved to question her, like a true uncle, about the cause of her melancholy. Her only friend, the daughter of a neighboring pastor, had just become engaged to a young agriculturist. I began with that, and asked if there was genuine love on the part of the girl, to whom I also had become attached. Marie, without looking up from her work, replied that this was a matter of course. How could people stand before the altar, and form the sacred tie, if there was no real love? Why, I answered, many a girl hopes that love will come after marriage, and only weds for the sake of having a home of her own, a husband, and children. True, I did not believe Marie capable of such conduct. She would never put this little hand--and as I spoke I patted the delicate little fingers resting on the beans--into that of a man whom she did not love with her whole heart.

Again I felt a violent tremor run through her slender figure; she made a visible effort to calm herself, but suddenly let the dish fall from her lap, tears streamed from her eyes, and, stammering almost inaudibly, "Excuse me, I don't feel well!" she rushed into the house as if flying from Satan himself.

I remained sitting on the bench as if a thunderbolt had struck me. It was long ere I could calm myself sufficiently to pick up the dish and carefully collect the scattered green pods.

What would I have given to be able, with a clear conscience, to follow the dear child, take her little cold hands in mine, and utter words which would have had the power to dry her tears.

But, deeply as my heart glowed with tender sympathy for this youthful sorrow, I did not doubt an instant that I should be doing her a far heavier wrong if I tried to console her without the "real love" than if I left her uncomforted.