'What if he came back,' I asked, 'with some hundred dollars' worth of bank-notes?'

'If they were his own,' said old Michel, with a significant wink, 'well--that would be another affair.'

I soon after took my departure, and went forth again into the deserted heath, free as it was from human beings and their cares. At a good distance on one side I perceived Esben, and the smoke issuing from his pipe. 'Thus,' thought I, 'he is consoling himself in his sorrow and his love; but the unhappy Cecilia!' I cast a lingering look back on the rich hosier's domicile, and said to myself, 'Had that house not stood there--there would have been so many less tears in this sad world!'

Six years had passed away before I happened again to be on that part of the heath; it was a calm September day, like the one on which I had formerly been there. Chance led me to the hosier's habitation; and as I recognized old Michel Krænsen's lonely dwelling, I recalled to memory the pretty Cecilia and her lover. With the remembrance came a curiosity, or rather a longing to know what had been the conclusion of this pastoral poem--this heath-drama.

As usual with me in similar cases, I felt much inclined to anticipate the probable history. I made my own conclusions, and settled in my own mind how everything had turned out, guided by destiny to a happy dénouement. Alas! how often were not my conclusions widely different from the real course of events! And such was the case here; I pictured to myself Esben and Cecilia as man and wife--she, with an infant in her arms--the grandfather with one or two little prattlers on his knee--and the young hosier himself a thriving and happy partner in the still flourishing concern: but, it was far otherwise.

Before I had crossed the threshold I heard a female's sweet voice singing what, at first, I took for a lullaby, or cradle-song, though the tone was so melancholy that my raised expectations at once fell considerably. I stood a moment and listened; the words of the song were mourning over hopeless love. They were simple, yet full of truth and sorrow, but my memory only retains the two lines which formed the refrain:

The greatest sorrow that this world can give,
Is, far away from those one loves--to live.

With dark forebodings I pushed open the door. A stout, strong-looking, middle-aged woman, of the labouring class, who was carding wool, was the first on whom my eye fell; but it was not she who sang. The songstress had her back turned to me, she sat rocking herself rapidly backwards and forwards, and kept moving her hands as if she were spinning. The first-named arose and bade me welcome, but I hastened forwards to see the face of her companion. It was Cecilia--pale, but still beautiful. She looked up at me--ah! then I read insanity in the vacant, though shining eyes, in the inexpressive smile, in the whole mindless countenance! I also observed that she had no spinning-wheel before her, but that that which she was so busily turning must have been made of the same material as Macbeth's dagger.

She suddenly stopped both her song and her airy wheel, and asked me hurriedly and eagerly, 'Are you from Holstein? Did you see Esben? Is he coming soon?'

I perceived her state, and thinking it best to humour her, I answered without hesitation,