"Why, no, sir;" replied the sexton, with a significant look; "people do say he was not; but if all tales be true that are rife about him, 'tis a sure thing he ought to have been."
"Hah! hum!" muttered Frantz, and a slight blush tinged his fine countenance. "His children you say—"
"Lord, sir! I said nothing about them—who told you? Few folks at Steingart, I guess, knew he had any but myself. 'Tis thought the poor things did not come fairly by their ends; and for certain, I never buried them!"
Frantz stood for some minutes absorbed in thought; at length he said— "were they baptized? I have a reason for asking."
"Perhaps sir, it is, that you are thinking if the poor, little, innocent creatures were not christened, they'd no right to be laid in consecrated ground."
"No matter what I think; I believe I have the register."
"You have, sir; please then to look at page 197, line 19, and I fancy you'll find the names of Gertrude and Erhard Dow, ('twas their poor misfortunate mother's sirname,) down as baptized."
"I have," interrupted Frantz, with an air of extreme solemnity, "seen, as I believe, those children and their father!"
"Mein Gott!" cried the sexton in excessive alarm—"seen them?—Seen Herr Von Weetzer! They do say he walks—dear, dear!—and after the shocking unchristian death that he died too! Where, sir? Where and when?"