Transcriber's notes:

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2. Completion of "Volumes Published" in the Leisure-Hour Series was accomplished by reference to books in Google.books.

THE LEISURE-HOUR SERIES.

A collection of works whose character is light and entertaining, though not trivial. While they are handy for the pocket or the satchel, they are not, either in contents or appearance, unworthy of a place on the library shelves. 16mo, cloth. PRICE REDUCED TO $1.00 PER VOLUME.

--> SPECIAL NOTICE--LIBRARY BINDING. A set of the works any author whose name is preceded by an asterisk (*), may be obtained in library style, extra cloth, gilt back, without extra charge. Single vols. in library style, $1.10.

VOLUMES PUBLISHED.

Where readers have no retail stores within reach, Messrs. Henry Holt & CO. will send their publications, post-paid, on receipt of the advertised price.

25 Bond St., N. Y., July 13, 187-.

EDELWEISS

Leontopodium Alpinum

"There is a flower known to botanists, one of the same genus with our summer plant called 'Life-Everlasting,' a Gnaphalium like that, which grows on the most inaccessible cliffs of the Tyrolese mountains, where the chamois dare hardly venture, and which the hunter, tempted by its beauty and by his love (for it is immensely valued by the Swiss maidens), climbs the cliffs to gather, and is sometimes found dead at the foot, with the flower in his hand. It is called by botanists the Gnaphalium leontopodium, but by the Swiss Edelweisse, which signifies Noble Purity."

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

(Leisure-Hour Series)

ON THE HEIGHTS. 2 vols.
THE VILLA ON THE RHINE. 2 vols.
BLACK FOREST VILLAGE STORIES
LITTLE BAREFOOT
JOSEPH IN THE SNOW
EDELWEISS
GERMAN TALES
WALDFRIED
THE CONVICTS AND THEIR CHILDREN
LORLEY AND REINHARD
ALOYS
POET AND MERCHANT
LANDOLIN

LEISURE HOUR SERIES. No. 44.

EDELWEISS

A STORY

BY

BERTHOLD AUERBACH

Author of "On the Heights," "Waldfried," "Villa on the Rhine," &c

TRANSLATED BY

ELLEN FROTHINGHAM.

NEW YORK:

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

1874

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by
ROBERTS BROTHERS,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

EDELWEISS.

On the sunny slope of a mountain stands a house that is a joy to every eye; for it tells of happy inmates who have won their happiness by long and painful struggle,--who have stood in the valley of the shadow of death, and risen to new life.

The housewife comes to the door. Her face is young and fair, and of a bright complexion, but her hair is white as snow. She smiles to an old woman who is working in the garden, and calls to the children not to be so noisy.

"Come in, Franzl; and you too, children. William is starting on his journey," says the young white-haired mother. The bent old woman, as she approaches, raises a corner of her apron to her eyes, to stop the gathering tears.

Presently the father comes from the house, accompanied by a young fellow with a knapsack on his back. "Bid your mother good by, William," he says. "Be careful so to conduct yourself that you need never fear the eyes of father or mother on your actions. Then, God willing, you shall one day cross this threshold again with a happy heart."

The young woman with the snow-white hair embraces the sturdy boy, and says through her sobs: "I have nothing to add. Your father has said all. Remember and bring home an Edelweiss, if you find any on the Swiss mountains." The traveller sets off amid the shouts of his brothers and sisters.

"Good by, William; good by, good by." They play with the word "good by," and will not let it go.

"Mother," the father calls back, "I am only going with William and Lorenz as far as the cross-roads. Pilgrim will keep on with them to their first sleeping-place. I shall soon be back."

"All right; only do not hurry yourself, and do not take the parting too much to heart. Tell Faller's wife she must come to us at noon, and bring Lizzie with her. It is a great comfort," she continues, turning to the old woman as father and son depart, "that Faller's Lorenz goes abroad with our William."

Our story will tell why the young, white-haired mother asks the little plant Edelweiss of her boy when he is starting for foreign lands. It is a sad, a cruel history, but the sun of love breaks through at last.

CHAPTER I.

A GOOD NAME.

"She was an excellent woman."

"Yes, there are few such left."

"She was one of the old school."

"Go to her when you would, her help and counsel were always ready."

"And how much she went through! She buried her husband and four children, yet was always brave and cheerful."

"Ah, Lenz will miss her sorely. He will find out now what a mother he had."

"Nay, he knew that in her lifetime. His devotion to her was unbounded."

"He must be thinking of marrying soon."

"He can choose whom he will. Any house would be glad to receive such a capable, excellent fellow."

"A pretty property he must have too."

"Besides being the only heir of his rich uncle Petrovitsch."

"How beautiful the singing of the Liederkranz was! It thrilled me through and through."

"And how it must have affected Lenz! He has always before sung with them, and his voice was one of the best."

"Did you notice he did not shed a tear while the minister was preaching; but when his friends began to sing, he cried and sobbed as if his heart would break."

"This is the first funeral that has not driven old Petrovitsch out of the town. It would have been shameful in him not to have paid the last honors to his own brother's wife."

So the people talked as they went their several ways through the valley and up the mountains. All were dressed in sober clothes, for they were coming from a funeral. Near the church in the valley, where stand a few thinly scattered houses, the Lion Inn conspicuous among them, the widow of the clock-maker Lenz of the Morgenhalde had been buried. All had a good word for her; and their sad faces showed that each had met with a personal loss in the good woman's death. As every fresh grief reopens the old wounds, the villagers had turned from the newly covered grave to visit those of their own loved ones, and there had prayed and mourned for the departed.

We are in the clock-making district, among those wooded hills that send their streams to the Rhine on one side and the Danube on the other. The inhabitants are by nature quiet and thoughtful. The women far outnumber the men, many of whom are scattered through all parts of the world, engaged in the clock trade. Those who remain at home are pale from their close confinement at work. The women, on the contrary, who labor in the field are bright and rosy, while a pretty air of demureness is imparted to their faces by the broad black ribbons they wear tied under the chin.

Agriculture is practised on a small scale. With the exception of a few large farms, it is limited to a scanty tillage of the meadows. In some places a narrow belt of trees runs down to the brook at the very bottom of the valley; in others, again, a tall, bare pine, on the edge of a meadow, shows that field and garden-patch have been wrested from the forest. The ash-trees, whose branches are stripped every year to furnish food for the goats, look like elongated willows. The village, or rather the parish, stretches out miles in length. The houses are built of whole trunks of trees, dovetailed together, and are sprinkled over mountain and valley. Their fronts present an uninterrupted row of windows, arranged without intermediate spaces, as the object is to admit all the light possible. The barn, when there is one, is approached from the hill behind the house by a passage entering directly under the roof. A heavy covering of thatch projects over the front, and serves as a protection from the weather. The color of the buildings harmonizes with the background of mountain and forest, while narrow footpaths of a lighter shade lead through the green meadows to the dwellings of the villagers.

The greater number of the mourners to-day pursued the same road up the valley. Here and there, as a woman reached the path leading to her own house, she turned aside from the main group, and waved her hymn-book to the children, watching at the row of windows, or running down the meadow lane to meet her. Each, as she laid aside her Sunday clothes, heaved a sigh of mingled grief for the departed and thankfulness that she and hers were still alive, and living together in love. But it was hard to settle down at once to the every-day work. The world had been left behind for a while, and its labors could not be easily resumed.

One of the group, whose way led him with the others as far as the next cross-road, was the weight-manufacturer from Knuslingen, the man who made the most exact lead and copper weights in the country. "A sorry thing, this dying," said he; "here is all the wisdom and experience that Mother Lenz had gathered together laid away in the ground, and the world none the better for it."

"Her son has, at least, inherited her goodness," replied a young woman.

"And experience and judgment every one must get for himself," said a little old man, with keen, inquiring eyes, who always went by the name of Pröbler, the experimenter, from having ruined himself in inventions and experiments, instead of keeping to the regular routine of clock-making.

"The old times were much wiser and better," said old David, the case-maker, who lived in the adjacent valley. "In those days a funeral feast was spread, at which we could refresh ourselves after our long journey and hard crying,--for crying is hungry and thirsty work,--and after that the minister preached his sermon. If we did rather overdo the matter sometimes, no one was the worse for it. But all that sort of thing is forbidden now, and I am so hungry and faint I feel ready to sink."

"So am I, and I," cried out several voices. "What are we to do when we get home?" continued old David; "the day is lost. We are very glad to give it to a good friend, to be sure; but the old way was better. Then we didn't get home till night, and had nothing more to think of."

"And could not have thought of it, if you had," interrupted the deep voice of young Faller, the clockmaker. He was second bass in the Liederkranz, and carried his music-book under his arm. His walk and bearing showed him to have been a soldier. "A funeral feast," he continued, "is a thing Mother Lenz would by no means have allowed. Everything in its time, she used to say; mourning and merry-making, each in its turn. I worked under old Lenz five years and three quarters; young Lenz and I were fellow-apprentices, and set up as journeymen together."

"You had better turn schoolmaster and preach the sermon," said old David angrily, muttering something further about those conceited Liederkranz fellows, who think the world didn't begin till they learned to sing their notes.

"That I can do too," said the young man, who either had not heard the last words, or pretended he had not. "I can make a eulogy; and a good thing it would be to talk of something besides our own appetites and pleasures after laying such a noble heart in the grave. What a man our old master was! Ah, if all the world were like him, we should need no more judges or soldiers or barracks or prisons! He was a right strict old fellow. No apprentice was allowed to give up the file for the lathe till he could cut by hand as perfect an octagon as any machinery could make, and no one of us was considered a finished workman till he could make the smallest clock; for, as the old master used to say, the man who can make small things will be most exact in great ones. No wheel nor weight that had the least flaw in it ever left his shop. 'My credit is at stake, and that of the whole district,' he would say. 'We must keep up our good name.' Let me tell you one little anecdote, to show what an influence he had over us young men. Young Lenz and I took up smoking when we became journeymen. 'Very well,' said the old man, 'if you will smoke, I cannot prevent it, and I don't want you to do it secretly. I am sorry to say I have the same bad habit myself,--I must smoke. But one thing let me tell you,--if you smoke, I shall give it up, hard as it will be for me. It will never do for us all to smoke.' Of course we did not contract the habit. Rather would we have lost the use of our mouths altogether than have required such a sacrifice of our master.

"And the mistress,--she stands this moment before God, and God will say to her, 'You have been upright above most women on the earth. You have had your faults, to be sure. You have spoiled your son; you might have made a man of him by letting him seek his fortune in the world, and you would not. But your thousands and thousands of good deeds known to none but me, your allowing none to be evil spoken of, your making the best of everything and everybody, even to speaking a good word for Petrovitsch,--not one shall be forgotten. Come, and receive your reward.' And do you know what she will say when God offers her a reward? 'Give it to my son,' she will say; 'and, if there is any over, there is such a one and such a one in bitter need, help him; I am content to look on.' You would hardly believe how little she ate. The old master often laughed at her for it, but really she was best satisfied by seeing others eat; and her son is just as good, heart and soul, as the mother was. I would lay down my life for him gladly."

Such was Faller's eulogy, and his deep voice often trembled with emotion as he delivered it. The others, however, did not let him monopolize young Lenz's praises.

Pröbler maintained that he was the only one in the whole country round who knew any more than the generation before him. "If people were not so obstinate and jealous, they would long ago have accepted that standard regulator we made together; I say we made, but must honestly confess he did the greater part of it."

Nobody paid much attention to what Pröbler said, especially as he spoke so unintelligibly--hardly above a mutter--that little could be made out except the words "standard regulator."

With more interest did they turn to old David, who next took up the word. "Lenz never passes a man without doing him a good turn. Every year he takes some of his leisure Sundays for tuning the organ of the blind old organist of Fuchsberg, and charges nothing for it. That is a labor of love that must please our Father in heaven. I too have profited by his help. He found me once in trouble over my barrel, that would not turn easily. So off he started to the mill, fitted me up a workshop in the loft, put my barrel in communication with the wheel, and now I can accomplish three times the work with half the labor."

Every one hastened to throw in a good word for young Lenz, as if it were a copper into the poor's box.

The weight-manufacturer had said nothing as yet, but contented himself with approving nods. He was the wisest of the party. The truth, and nothing but the truth, had been spoken, he very well knew, but not the whole truth. He could tell them there was no better man to work for than Lenz. The work must be thoroughly done, to be sure; but then you got not only full pay, but good words besides, which were worth more than the money.

Faller parted from the group here, and took the path towards his house among the hills. Soon afterwards the whole party dispersed in various directions,--each, as he went, accepting a farewell pinch from Pröbler's birch-bark snuff-box. Old David, with his stout staff, went on alone up the valley; he was the only one from his parish who had come to the funeral.

CHAPTER II.

THE MOURNER AND HIS COMPANION.

Narrow footpath leads from the village to a solitary thatched cottage, only a small part of whose roof, just about the chimney, is covered with tiles. The house does not come in sight till you have climbed a good half-mile up the mountain. The path leads behind the church,--between hedges at first, then across open fields, where you hear the murmur of the pine-woods that cover the steep mountain-side. Behind this mountain, the Spannreute, rise still other peaks; but even this front slope is so steep that the harvest gathered on the upland meadows has to be brought down to the valley on sledges.

Along the footpath between the hedges two men were now walking, one behind the other. The one in front was a little old man, whose dress showed him to be a person of property. He carried a cane in his hand, with the tasselled string twisted about his wrist by way of precaution. His step was still firm; his face, a perfect mass of wrinkles, moved up and down as he mumbled lumps of white sugar, which he produced from time to time from his pocket. His sandy eyebrows were brushed out till they stood almost at right angles with his face, and from under them peered a pair of shrewd, light blue eyes. The young man who walked behind was tall and slender, with crape on his hat and on the sleeve of his long blue coat. He kept his face turned to the ground, and shook his head sadly as he walked. At last he stopped, and straightened himself up, bringing to view a fresh face, with light beard and blue eyes, whose lids were red with weeping.

"Uncle," he said, hoarsely. The sugar-eater turned round. "Uncle, you have gone far enough. Thank you heartily; but the way is long, and I would rather go home alone."

"Why?"

"I don't know why; but I feel it were better so."

"No, no; turn back with me."

"I am sorry not to oblige you, uncle; but I cannot,--I really cannot go to the inn just now. I am neither hungry nor thirsty; I don't know when I shall ever eat and drink again. It is a pity you should take this long walk for me."

"No, no; I will go home with you. I am not so hard-hearted as your mother tried to make you believe."

"My mother tried to make me believe no evil of you. She spoke nothing but good of any one, and especially against her relations she would hear no tales. 'To speak evil of a brother is to slander yourself,' she used to say."

"Yes, yes; she had plenty of proverbs. 'Marie Lenz used to say so and so,' is in every one's mouth. Nothing but good should be spoken of the dead, and in fact there can no evil be said of her."

The young man cast a sad glance at his uncle. He always managed to put a sting even into his kindliest words.

"How often she has said to me lately," continued the young man, "and how it pained me to hear her, 'Lenz, I have lived six years too long for you. You ought to have married at five-and-twenty; it will come harder now. You have grown too much used to my ways, and they cannot last.' I could not persuade her out of the idea. It imbittered her death-bed."

"She was right," said the sugar-eater. "She was too good-natured; self-willed she was also, but that was no matter. Her good-nature spoiled you. I did not mean to tell you so now, though; another time would be better. Come, do as I bid you, and don't be such a baby. You act as if you did not know which way to turn. It is all in the course of nature that your mother should die before you, and you have nothing to reproach yourself with in your treatment of her."

"No, thank God!"

"Show yourself a man, then, and stop crying and bawling. I never saw anybody cry in all my life as you did in the churchyard."

"I cannot tell you how I felt, uncle. I wept for my mother, but also for myself. When the Liederkranz sang the songs that I had always sung with them, and I had to stand there dumb and dead, I felt as if I were really dead, and they were singing at my grave and I could not join in."

"You are--" said the old man. He was about to add something, but choked it down and walked on. The little dog that was running in front looked up wonderingly in his master's face, as if he hardly recognized the look he saw there.

Presently the old man stopped. "I am going back," he said. "Only one word more with you. Take into your house none of your mother's relations whom afterwards you will have to send away. They will forget all your kindness, and only be vexed that it cannot continue. Neither give anything away, no matter who asks. If you are tempted to, go off somewhere for a week or so, and, when you come home, keep the keys to yourself. Now good by, and be a man!"

"Good by, uncle," said the young man, and went on towards his home. He kept his eyes fixed on the ground, but knew at every step where he was. Every stone on the path was familiar to him. When at last he reached the house, he could hardly bring himself to cross the threshold.

How much had happened there! and what was to come next? He must learn to bear.

The old serving-woman sat in the kitchen with her apron over her head. "Is that you, Lenz?" she sobbed, as the young man passed her.

The room looked empty, yet everything was there. The work-bench with its five divisions for the five workmen stood before the unbroken row of windows; the tools hung on straps and nails round the wall; the clocks ticked; the doves cooed; yet all was so empty, so desolate and dead! The arm-chair stood with outspread arms, waiting. Lenz leaned on the back of it and wept bitterly. Then he got up and tried to go to her chamber. "It is impossible you are not there," he said, half aloud. The sound of his own voice startled him. He sank exhausted into the chair where his mother had so often rested.

At last he took courage and entered the deserted chamber.

"Have you not forgotten something that I ought to have sent after you?" he said again. With an inward shudder he opened his mother's chest, into which he had never looked. It seemed almost a sacrilege to look now, but he did. Perhaps she had left a word or a token for him. He found the christening presents of his dead brothers and sisters tied up in separate parcels and marked with their names; his own lay among them. There were some old coins, his mother's confirmation dress, her bridal wreath,--dried, but carefully preserved,--her garnet ornaments, and in a little box by itself, wrapped in five thicknesses of fine paper, a little white, velvety plant, labelled in his mother's handwriting. The son read at first under his breath, then half aloud, as if wishing to hear his mother's words, "This is a little plant Edelweiss--"

"Here is something to eat," suddenly cried a voice through the open door.

It was only old Franzl calling, but it startled Lenz like the voice of a spirit.

"Coming," he answered, shut the door hastily, bolted it, and restored everything carefully to its former place before going into the sitting-room, where old Franzl was indulging in many a solemn shake of the head at this mystery which she was not permitted to share.

CHAPTER III.

WORK AND BENEFACTION.

The bailiff, Lenz's nearest neighbor, though not a very near one, had sent in food, as was the custom in that part of the country when a death occurred, in the supposition that the mourners might not have thought of preparing any. Moreover, during a funeral, and for three hours after, no fire was allowed to be kindled on the hearth.

The bailiff's daughter brought the food into the room herself.

"Thanks to you and your parents, Katharine. Take away the food; when I am hungry, I will eat; I cannot now," said Lenz.

"But you must try," said Franzl; "that is the custom; you must put something to your lips. Sit down, Katharine; you should always sit down when you visit a mourner, not keep standing. Young people nowadays don't know what the custom is. And you must say something, Katharine; you should talk to a mourner, not be dumb. Say something."

The sturdy, round-cheeked girl flushed crimson. "I can't," she stammered out, bursting into a passion of tears, and covering her face with her apron, as she became conscious that Lenz's eyes were fixed upon her.

"Don't cry," he said, soothingly. "Thank God every day that you still have your parents. There, I have tasted the soup."

"You must take something else," urged Franzl. He obeyed with an effort, and then rose from the table. The girl rose too. "Forgive me, Lenz," she said. "I ought to have comforted you, but I--I--"

"I know; thank you, Katharine. I can't talk much yet myself."

"Good by. Father says you must come and see us; he has a lame foot, and cannot come to you."

"I will see: I will come if I can."

When she was gone, Lenz walked up and down the room with outstretched hands, as seeking to grasp some form, but he found no one. His eye fell upon the tools, and was chiefly attracted by a file that hung on the wall by itself. A sudden idea seized him as he raised his hand to take it.

This file was his choicest heirloom. His father had used it constantly for forty-seven years, till his thumb had worn a groove in its maple-wood handle. "Who would believe," the old man was fond of saying, "that many years' work of a man's hand would wear a wooden handle like that?" The mother always exhibited this wonderful file to strangers as a curiosity.

The doctor down in the valley had a collection of old clocks and tools, and had often asked for this file to hang up in his cabinet; but the father never would give it. Since his death, the mother and son naturally set a great value on the heirloom. After the father's funeral, when mother and son were sitting quietly together at home, she said, "Now, Lenz, we have wept enough; we must bear our burden in silence. Take your father's file, and work. 'Work and pray while yet it is day,' runs the proverb. Be glad you have an honest trade, and do not need to brood over what is past. A thousand times has your father said, 'What a help it is to get up in the morning and find your work waiting. When I file, I file all the useless chips out of my brain; and when I hammer, I knock all heavy thoughts on the head, and away they go.'

"Those were my mother's words then, and they ring in my ears to-day. Would I could always be as sure of her counsel!"

Lenz set himself industriously to work. Without stood Franzl and Katharine. "I am glad you were the first to bring the food," said the old woman; "it is a good sign. Whoever brings the first morsel at such a time-- But I have said nothing: no one shall say I had a hand in it. Only come back this evening, and be the one to bid him good night. If you bid him good night three times, something is sure to come of it. Hark! what is that? Saints in heaven, he is working now, on such a day as this! What a man! I have known him ever since he was a baby, but there is no telling what queer thing he will do. Yet he is so good! Don't tell he was working, will you? it might make people talk. Come yourself for the dishes this evening, and be composed, so that you can talk properly. You can generally use your tongue well enough."

Franzl was interrupted by Lenz's voice, calling from the door, "If any visitors come, Franzl, I can see none but Pilgrim. Are you still there, Katharine?"

"I am going this minute," said she, and ran down the hill.

Lenz returned to his seat, and worked without intermission, while Franzl as busily racked her brain to make out this extraordinary man, who, a moment before, was crying himself sick, and now sat quietly at work. It could not be from want of feeling, nor from avarice, but what could it mean?

"My old head is not wise enough," said Franzl. Her first impulse was to go to her mistress and ask what she could make of it; but she checked herself, and covered her face with her hands as she remembered the mother was dead. To Franzl's consternation, visitors began now to arrive,--various members of the Liederkranz, besides some of the older townspeople. In great embarrassment she turned them away, talking all the time as loud as if they were deaf. She would gladly have stopped their ears, if she could, to keep them from hearing Lenz at work. "If Pilgrim would only come," she thought. "Pilgrim can do anything with him; he would not mind taking the tools out of his hand." But no Pilgrim came. At last a happy thought struck her. There was no need of her staying at home. She would go a little way down the hill, beyond the sound of hammer and saw, and prevent visitors from coming up.

Lenz meanwhile was recovering composure and firmness over his work. When he left off, towards evening, he descended the hill, and, taking the path behind the houses, proceeded in the direction of his friend Pilgrim's. Halfway down he turned about as suddenly as if some one had called him; but all was still. Only the blackbird's ceaseless twittering was heard in the bushes, and the yellowhammer's monotonous whistle from the fresh pine-tops. There are no larks down in the valley and meadows, but on the upland fields you hear them chattering in the wide stretches of corn. The mists were rising from the meadows, too light to be seen just about him, but plainly visible in the distance behind and before.

Lenz walked rapidly up the valley, till the sun set behind the Spannreute and turned the lowland mist into flaming clouds. "It is the first time it has set upon her grave," he murmured. He stood still a moment, took off his hat at the sound of the evening bells, and went on more slowly. At a turn in the valley, just below a solitary little house, from which a thick bush screened him, he paused again. Upon a bench before the house sat a man whom we have seen before, the clockmaker Fallen. He was dancing a child on his knee, while beside him his sister, whose husband was abroad, sat nursing her baby, and kissing its little hands.

"Good evening, Faller!" cried Lenz in his old, clear tenor voice.

"It is you,--is it?" called back Faller's bass. "We were just talking of you. Lisbeth thought you would forget us in your sorrow; but I said, on the contrary, you would not fail to remember our need."

"It is about that I am come. Henzel's house is to be sold to-morrow, as you know; and if you want to buy it, I will be your security. It will be pleasant to have you for neighbor."

"That would be fine, glorious! So you stay where you are?"

"Why not?"

"I was told you were going abroad for a year or two."

"Who told you?"

"Your uncle, I think, said so. I am not quite sure."

"Did he? maybe so. If I do go, you must move into my house."

"Better stay at home. It is too late to go abroad."

"And marry soon," added the young mother.

"Yes, that will tie you down, and put an end to your roving. But, Lenz, whatever you do must prosper. Your mother in heaven will bless you for remembering me in your time of grief. Not a moment goes by that I do not think of her. You come honestly by your goodness, for she was always thoughtful of others. God bless you!"

"He has already. The walk here and our plan together have lightened my heart. Have you anything to eat, Lisbeth? I feel hungry for the first time to-day."

"I will beat you up a couple of eggs."

"Thanks."

Lenz ate with an appetite that delighted his hosts.

Faller's mother, much against her son's will, asked Lenz for some of his mother's clothes, which he readily promised. Faller insisted on walking part way home with him; but hardly had they gone twenty steps before he gave a shrill whistle, and called back to his sister, who inquired what was wanted, that he should not be at home till morning.

"Where do you spend the night?" asked Lenz.

"With you."

The two friends walked on in silence. The moon shone bright, and the owls hooted in the forest, while from the village came the sound of music and merry voices.

"It were not well that all should mourn for one," said Lenz. "Thank God that each of us can bear his own sorrow and his own joy."

"There spoke your mother," returned Faller.

"Stop!" cried Lenz; "don't you want to let your betrothed know you can buy the cottage?"

"That I do. Come with me, and let me show you the happiest household in all the world."

"No, no; you run up alone. I am not fit for joy, and am wofully tired besides. I'll wait for you here. Run quick, and be quick back again."

Faller ran up the hill, while Lenz sat down on a pile of stones by the roadside. As the refreshing dew was shed upon tree and shrub and every blade of grass, so a pure influence as of dew from heaven sank into the heart of the lonely mourner; a light flashed from the little house on the mountain-side, which had been dark before, and light and joy shone in hearts that had long desponded.

Faller came back breathless to tell of the great rejoicing there had been. The old father had opened the window, and shouted down the valley: "A thousand blessings on you, kindest of friends," and the dear girl had laughed and wept by turns.

The friends walked on again, each silently busied with his own thoughts. Faller's step was firm, and his whole bearing so steady and erect that Lenz involuntarily straightened himself up as he kept pace with him. When the path began to ascend again, he cast another glance back at the churchyard, and sighed.

"My father lies there too," said Faller, "and was not spared as long as yours." They went on up the mountain, Lenz taking the lead. What does he see white moving above him? Who is it? Can it be-- His mother is not dead! She cannot keep away from him, she has come back!

The mourner gazed with an inward fear.

"Good evening, Lenz," cried Katharine's voice.

"What are you doing there?"

"I have been with Franzl. She sent for our maid to keep her company, for she is old and timid. I should not be afraid if your mother herself came back. Good night, Lenz! good night! good night!"

She said good night three times, as Franzl had bidden her. There must be some charm in the words. Who knows what may come of them?

CHAPTER IV.

EACH BEFORE HIS OWN DOOR.

The cool evening following the excessive heat of the day had tempted the villagers out of doors. Some families sat on the bench before their houses, but more were gathered about the stone railing of the bridge, always a favorite place of evening resort for rest or social chat after the day's work. Thence can be seen the passing on both sides, while the babbling of the brook provokes conversation. Various woods were lying seasoning in the water below. The clocks were less likely to warp or shrink when the wood of which they were made had been thoroughly drained of its juices. But the people on the bridge understood the process of seasoning in all its branches. The subject of their talk now, even as late in the day as this, was the morning's funeral, which naturally led to a discussion of young Lenz and the necessity of his making a speedy marriage. The women were lavish of their praises of him, not a few of their encomiums being meant as hints to the men that they might profitably follow his example, since virtue, when seen, was so readily appreciated. The men, however, pronounced him a good sort of fellow enough, only too soft-hearted. The young girls, with the exception of those who had declared lovers, said nothing; especially as the suggestion had been started that Lenz was to marry one of the doctor's daughters. Some even asserted that it was a settled thing, and would be publicly announced as soon as the proper time of mourning was over. Suddenly, no one knew how or where it originated, the report circulated from house to house, and among the persons on the bridge, that Lenz had spent that day, the very day of his mother's funeral, in uninterrupted work. The women lamented that avarice should mar a character in other respects so good. The men, on the other hand, tried to excuse him. But the conversation soon turned upon the weather and the course of events,--both fruitful subjects, as nothing can be foretold of either. They were none the less comfortably discussed, however, till it was time to bid good night, and leave the stars in heaven and the affairs of the world to go on their appointed courses.

But the pleasantest resting-place of all was the doctor's pretty garden, further down the valley, whence a wonderful fragrance arose on the evening air. And yet not wonderful either, for the garden was stocked with all manner of medicinal plants in full blossom, the doctor being a mixer of drugs as well as physician. He was a native of the village, the son of a clockmaker. His wife came from the capital, but had made herself so completely at home in her husband's native valley, that her mother-in-law, the old mayoress, as she was called, who lived with them, used to say she must have led a previous existence as a child of the Black Forest, so naturally did she adopt its customs. The doctor, like his father before him, was mayor of the village. He had four children. The only son, contrary to general expectation, did not learn a profession, but preferred to study the science of clock-making, and, at the time of our story, was absent in French Switzerland. The three daughters were the most aristocratic ladies in the place, at the same time that they were unsurpassed in industry by any of their humbler neighbors. Amanda, the eldest, acted as her father's assistant, besides having the charge of the garden. Bertha and Minna took an active part in the housekeeping, and occupied their leisure in plaiting those fine straw braids that are sent to Italy and come to us in the shape of Leghorn hats.

This evening, the family in the garden had a visitor,--a young machinist, called in the village, for convenience, the engineer. His two brothers married daughters of the landlord of the Lion. One of them was a rich wood-merchant in the next county town, the other the owner of one of the most frequented bathing establishments in the lower Black Forest, as well as of a considerable private estate. It was said that the engineer was to marry the landlord's only remaining daughter, Annele.

"You speak well, Mr. Storr," the doctor was saying, in a voice whose tones showed him to be hale and hearty. "We must not rejoice in the beauties of mountain and valley, and take no thought for the people who inhabit them. There is too much of the superficial, restless spirit of change in the world of to-day. For my part, I have no desire to rove; my own narrow sphere contents me, body and mind. I have even had to give up my old hobby of botanizing, or, rather, I have voluntarily given it up, in order to devote more time to the study of humanity. In the general division of labor, every one should take what best suits his capacities. That is a lesson my country-people will not learn, and our native industry suffers in consequence."

"May I ask you to explain yourself more particularly?"

"The thing is very simple. Our clock-making, like all our home pursuits, is the natural result of the unproductiveness of our soil, and the indivisibility of our large, entailed estates. Younger sons, and all whose whole capital consists in their industry, must make the most of that, if they would earn a living. Hence that natural aptitude for work, that strict, unresting carefulness, that are common among us. Our forests supply the best wood for machinery and cases, and as long as our wooden clocks found a good market, a manufacturer, with the help of his wife and children to paint the dial-plate, could make an entire clock in his own house. But now that metal clocks have been introduced, and have, in a measure, supplanted the wooden ones, a division of labor has become necessary. There is a strong competition in France, in America, and especially in Saxony. We must give up pendulums, and take to springs. These changes cannot be effected without the help of some general and binding association among the workmen. The stone-cutters, in old times, used to form themselves into a guild, presided over by a chosen head, and that is what is wanted here. The workmen, scattered about on the mountains, must enter into a league with one another, and work into each other's hands. The difficulty is to bring about such a league among our people. In Switzerland a watch passes through a hundred and twenty hands before it is finished. But the very perseverance of the good people here, which is undoubtedly a virtue, makes them unwilling to adopt new ways. Only by unexampled frugality and application could our home manufactures have been carried on as long as they have. You would hardly believe what a morbid sensitiveness our people have contracted by their constant and close confinement at their work. They have to be handled as tenderly as their own clocks, which an awkward touch will break."

"It seems to me," answered the young man, "that the first thing wanted now is a better case for your clocks, that they may become more of a parlor ornament."

"I quite agree with you," said Bertha, the second daughter. "I spent a year with my aunt in the capital, and, wherever I visited, I found one of my compatriots, a Black Forest clock, like Cinderella, in the kitchen. In the best room, resplendent with gold and alabaster, was sure to be a French mantel-clock, never wound up, or never right if it was, while my compatriot in the kitchen was always going, and always exact."

"Cinderella needs to be metamorphosed," said the young man; "but she must keep her virtues, and tell the truth, when she gets into the best parlor."

The doctor did not let the conversation follow the turn the young people had given it; but entered into further explanations of the peculiarities of his country-people. A tolerably long residence abroad enabled him to judge them impartially, while yet he had lived years enough at home to know and appreciate their good qualities. He spoke High German, but with a decided provincial accent.

"Good evening to you all," cried a passer-by.

"Ah, is it you, Pilgrim? Wait a minute," cried the doctor. "How is Lenz?" he asked, as the passer-by stopped at the garden gate.

"I have not seen him since the funeral. I am just from the Lion, where I was fool enough to get into a quarrel about him."

"How was that?"

"They were talking about his having been at work all day to-day, and finding fault with him for it, and calling him a miser. Lenz a miser! Nonsense!"

"You should not let it disturb you. You and I know, and so do many others, that Lenz is a good fellow, above all such reproaches. Was not Petrovitsch with him to-day?"

"No. I thought he would be, and therefore did not go myself. Doctor, I wanted to ask if you would have time to come to my house to-morrow for a moment. I should like to show you what I have been doing."

"Certainly I will come."

"Good night to you all."

"Good night, Pilgrim; pleasant dreams."

"Send me back my songs to-morrow," cried Bertha, as he was going.

"I will bring them," returned Pilgrim; and soon after they heard his clear musical whistle in the distance.

"That is a remarkable man," said the doctor. "He is a case-painter, and an intimate friend of Lenz, whose mother was buried this morning. He is quite a hidden genius, and has rather a remarkable history."

"Pray, let me hear it."

"Some other time, when we are by ourselves."

"No, we should like to hear it again," exclaimed his wife and daughters, and the doctor began as follows.

CHAPTER V.

PILGRIM'S ADVENTURES.

Pilgrim was the son of a case-painter. Left an orphan at an early age, he was brought up at the public expense by the old schoolmaster. But he spent by far the greater part of his time with Lenz the clockmaker on the Morgenhalde. In old Lenz's wife he found almost a second mother, while their only surviving child, the Lenz who has been working to-day, was like a brother to him. Pilgrim was always the more ready and skilful workman of the two; for Lenz, with all his undoubted ability, has a certain fanciful dreaminess of character. Perhaps there is a genius for music in Lenz and for painting in Pilgrim that has never been developed; who knows? You must hear Lenz sing some time. He is first tenor in the Liederkranz; and it is chiefly owing to him that our society won the prize at two musical festivals,--one at Constance and the other at Freiburg. As the boys grew up, Lenz was apprenticed to his father and Pilgrim to a case-painter, but they continued close friends. Through the long summer evenings they would wander singing and whistling over hill and valley, as sure to be together as the twin stars in heaven. Winter nights Pilgrim had to walk up to the Morgenhalde through snow and storm; for Lenz, being, as I have said, the last of five children, was somewhat spoiled by his mother, and kept at home in bad weather. There they would sit together half through the night, reading books of travel or whatever else they could lay hands on. Many a volume out of my library has their thirst for knowledge devoured. Together they devised a plan for travelling abroad; for, with all the domestic habits of our people, there is a general desire among them to see the world. As soon as it was sure that both were exempt from military service,--Pilgrim by lot, and Lenz as being an only son,--they were anxious to carry their plan into execution. Lenz showed on this subject for the first time a persistent obstinacy which had never been suspected in him. He would not be dissuaded from the journey. His father was for letting him go, but the very thought threw his mother into despair. When the minister's persuasions failed, I was called in, and enjoined to talk the boy into a whole catalogue of diseases, if other arguments failed. Of course I pursued a different treatment. The two friends had always admitted me into their confidence, and now freely imparted to me their entire plan. Pilgrim, as usual, was the instigator. Lenz, notwithstanding his sensitiveness, has a sound practical nature, though limited to a small circle of ideas. If not confused by arguments, his instincts generally lead him in the right direction; and whatever he undertakes he clings to with a perseverance amounting almost to devotion. I will show you to-morrow a standard regulator he has set up, whose adoption would be a benefit to the whole country. Lenz's mind was in fact not so firmly made up in favor of Pilgrim's plan as he had given his parents to understand. He thought his friend would do better to learn clock-making thoroughly before going into the trade, as a merchant should be able to repair any clock that may come in his way, as well as those he carries with him. Pilgrim finally decided to enter on an apprenticeship. As soon, however, as he had learned what was absolutely necessary, the plan of his journey was resumed more resolutely than ever. The objects he proposed to himself were numerous. At one time he wanted to make money enough to visit an academy; at another he meant to become a great artist on his travels; then again he only desired to discomfit the moneyed aristocracy by coming home with a bag full of gold. In reality he despised money, and for that very reason would gladly have had it to throw away. There was, besides, some youthful fancy in his head at that time, I imagine. Greece, Athens, was the goal of his desires. The very name of Athens would make his eyes sparkle and his color rise. "Athens!" he would say, "does not the word transport you to marble staircases and lofty halls?" He seemed to imagine that the mere breathing of classic air would make another man of him, change him into a great artist. I tried to disabuse his mind of these mistaken notions, and succeeded in making him promise he would confine himself to earning a living, and leave all else for some future time. Old Lenz and I gave security for the merchandise he was to take with him. He finally set out alone, Lenz yielding to our persuasions, and remaining at home. "I am like the wave," Pilgrim used to say, "that is drawn from the Black Forest to the Black Sea." He hoped to introduce our domestic clocks into Greece and the East, where they had never been so favorably received as in northern countries and the New World. It is pleasant to hear Pilgrim tell how he went through various foreign countries, through cities and villages, with his Black Forest clocks hung about him, making them strike as he went along, himself taking notice all the while of everything on the way. That was the trouble with him. His eyes were too busy with other things, with the landscape and beautiful buildings and the manners and customs of the country,--a great mistake for a merchant. As our clock-work never changes, go where it will, over sea and land, so our people remain the same in every latitude. To make and to save, to live frugally, and never be content till they can come home with a full money-bag, that is the one thing they care for, let the world wag as it may. A very good and necessary thing it is, too, in its place. One head must not have too many projects at one time. But the day of peddling and saving is past. We must be men of business now, and establish permanent markets in other lands for our merchandise.

"Did Pilgrim ever reach Athens?"

"Indeed he did, and he has often told me that the joy and devotion with which the Crusaders greeted Jerusalem could not have exceeded his on first seeing Athens. He rubbed his eyes to convince himself it was really Athens. He expected the marble statues to nod a greeting to him as he went jingling through the streets. But not a single clock did he sell. He was reduced to such extremity at last as to consider himself lucky to get a piece of work to do; and what work! For fourteen days, under the blue Grecian sky, in sight of the Acropolis, he had to paint the green lattice-work fence of a beer-garden."

"What is the Acropolis?" asked Bertha.

"You can tell her, Storr," suggested the doctor.

The engineer gave a hasty sketch of the former beauty of the citadel of Athens and its present scanty remains, promising to bring a picture of it the next time he came, and then begged the doctor to go on with his story.

"There is little more to tell," he resumed. "With the closest management, Pilgrim contrived to dispose of his clocks, so that we were no losers. It required no small courage to return poorer than he went, to be a general laughing-stock among his old neighbors. But as his enthusiasm led him to despise the moneyed aristocracy, as he was fond of calling it, he put on a bold front, and let who would laugh. Of course, he went first to the Morgenhalde. The parents were standing with folded hands about the dinner-table. Lenz gave such a cry, his mother used to say it would kill her to hear the like again. The two friends fell into each other's arms. Pilgrim soon recovered his good spirits, and laughed about his luck being better at home than anywhere else; for there he found at least a well-spread table. Certainly he could nowhere have found a warmer welcome than from the parents and son at the Morgenhalde. Old Lenz wanted to take him into his house; but Pilgrim resolutely declined. He was always jealous of his independence. He fitted up a nice workshop at Don Bastian's, very near us. At first he took pains to introduce new patterns of clock-cases; but he could not succeed in changing essentially the shape of our Black Forest clocks,--the square with a pointed arch. Not disheartened by finding his novelties unacceptable, he cheerfully fell back on making the old-fashioned cases, for which he gets plenty of orders. He has some skill in coloring; but his drawing is faulty. You must know that different countries have different tastes in clock-cases. France likes the case well covered with bright colors; North Germany, Scandinavia, and England prefer simpler outlines, architectural ornamentation, like gables or columns,--at most, nothing more florid than a garland. Shepherds and shepherdesses are for the Vorarlberg. No clocks can be sent to the East with human figures on the dial-plate; lately Roman numerals have been allowed, but formerly none but Turkish. America likes no painting, but requires carving more or less elaborate. American clocks, as they are called, have the weights raised by pulleys on one side. Hungary and Russia fancy fruit-pieces and landscapes. Ornaments of the best taste are not always preferred; on the contrary, a finical style is often most popular. If you can improve the appearance of our clocks, you will be doing Pilgrim a service. Perhaps you can give him a fresh start in life; though he hardly needs it, for he possesses the rare art of being happy without being prosperous."

"I should like to make his acquaintance."

"You shall call upon him with me to-morrow. Only come bright and early, so that we can take a walk over the hills. I will show you some fine views, and nice people beside."

After bidding the engineer a hearty good night the doctor and his family re-entered the house.

The moon shone clear in the heavens; the flowers sent out their fragrance into the night, with none to enjoy it, and the stars looked down upon them. No sound was heard, save from a house here and there the striking of a clock.

CHAPTER VI.

THE WORLD PRESENTS ITSELF.

"Good morning, Lenz! You have had a good night's rest, just as children do who have cried themselves to sleep." Thus was Lenz greeted the next morning by Faller's deep bass voice. "O my friend," he answered; "it brings back all my misery to wake up and remember what happened yesterday. But I must be calm. I will proceed at once to write the security for you. Take it to the mayor before he starts on his round, and greet him from me. I remember I dreamed of him last night. Go to Pilgrim's too, if you can, and tell him I shall wait at home for him to-day. Good luck with your house! I am glad to think you will have a roof of your own."

Faller started off for the valley with the paper, leaving Lenz to his work. But before sitting down to it he wound up one of his musical clocks and made it play a choral. The piece goes well, he said to himself, nodding his head approvingly over the wheel on which he was filing. It was her--my mother's--favorite tune. The great musical clock with the handsomely carved nut-wood case, as tall as a good-sized wardrobe, was called "The Magic Flute," from the overture of that opera, which was the longest of five pieces that it played. It was already sold to a large tea-dealer in Odessa. A smaller clock stood beside it, and near that a third, on which Lenz was working. At noon, after laboring uninterruptedly all the morning, he began to feel hungry; but no sooner had he sat down to his solitary meal than all hunger forsook him. He asked the old serving-maid to eat with him, as she used to do in his mother's lifetime. She consented, after a great show of maidenly delicacy at the idea of dining alone with so young a man; but by the time the soup was finished, she had so far recovered her self-possession as to bring up the question of his marriage and gave her advice against it.

"Who says I mean to marry?"

"I think, if you do, you ought to marry the bailiff's daughter Katharine. She comes of a respectable family, and has the greatest respect for you; she actually swears by you. That would be just the right sort of wife,--not one who would treat you like the very ground she walks on. Girls nowadays are so--so exacting, they care for nothing but dress and show."

"I am not thinking of marrying; certainly not now."

"You are quite right. It is not at all necessary you should. Take my word for it, you will never be better off than you are now. I am used to your ways, and I will keep everything so exactly as your mother did that you will think she is alive again. Don't your beans taste good now? Your mother taught me to cook them so. She understood everything from the greatest to the smallest. You will be as comfortable as can be when we are by ourselves. You see if you are not."

"I don't think we shall keep on as we are, Franzl," said Lenz.

"So you have some one already in your mind,--have you? People fancy Lenz thinks of nothing but his clocks and his mother. Much they know about it! If it is only some girl that comes of a good family. Katharine, now, would be a wife for every day in the week,--for working days and for holidays. She can look after the house and the field, and can spin--you'd think she would spin the very straw down from the roof. Then, too, she swears by you; all you say and all you do is perfect. She always says whatever comes from Lenz is right, however it may look,--like your working yesterday, for instance. Besides, she is well off; what she inherits from her mother alone would be a portion for one of your children."

"I have no thought of marrying, Franzl. Perhaps--I don't know, but perhaps--I shall sell or lease my house and go abroad."

Franzl stared at him in speechless amazement, forgetting even to carry her spoon to her mouth.

"I will provide for you, Franzl; you shall want for nothing. But I have never been out into the world, and should like once to see and learn something. Perhaps I may further my art in some way; who knows?"

"It is none of my business," said Franzl; "I am only an ignorant servant-woman, though we Knuslingers have the reputation of keeping pretty good eyes in our heads. I don't know much about the world; but one thing I do know, and that is, that I have not lived in service twenty-seven years for nothing. I came into this house when you were four years old. You were the youngest and dearest of all the children, and your brothers and sisters in their graves,--but no matter for that now. I have lived with your mother twenty-seven years. I cannot say I am as wise as she was; where is the woman, far or near, who can say that for herself? You'll never find her equal as long as the world lasts. But I learned a good deal from her. How often I have heard her say, 'Franzl, people rush out into the world as if somewhere, across the Rhine or over the sea, fortune were running about the streets, and crying to Tom, Dick, and Harry, "Good morning, Tom, Dick, and Harry; I am glad to see you." Franzl,' your mother used to say, 'if a man can't succeed at home, he won't succeed abroad. There are people enough everywhere to pick up gold, if it does rain down, without waiting for strangers to come and help them. What sort of a fortune can a man make in the world? He can't do more than eat, drink, and sleep. Franzl,' she'd say, 'my Lenz,'--excuse me, it was she that said it, not I,--'my Lenz, like the rest of them, once got into his head that silly notion of travelling; but where can he be better off than here? He is not fitted for the wild world. One must be a robber, like Petrovitsch, a good-for-nothing, stingy, greedy, cruel wretch.' I don't mean she said that; she never said such a thing of anybody; but I say it and think it. 'If my Lenz were to go abroad,' she said, 'he would give the shirt off his body to the first beggar he met; any one could deceive him, he is so kindhearted. Franzl,' says she, 'if the wandering spirit comes over him when I am gone, Franzl,' says she, 'hang on to his coat, and don't let him stir.' But, good gracious! I can't do that; how can I? I can only speak; and I must speak, for she made me solemnly promise. Just think how well off you are. You have a comfortable house, a good living; you are loved and respected. If you go out into the world, who will care for you? who will know you are Lenz of the Morgenhalde? When you have no place to lay your head, and are obliged to spend the night in the woods, you will think of your house at home and the seven well-stuffed beds that are in it, and the plenty of furniture and dishes, and the wine on tap in the cellar. Sha'n't I fetch you a glass? I'll get you one in a minute. Always drink when you're out of spirits. A thousand times your mother has said, 'Wine cheers a man up, and makes him think of other things.'"

So saying, she hurried out of the room and into the cellar, soon returning with a flagon in her hand. Lenz insisted on her bringing a second glass, and filled it for her himself; but she was too modest to do more than touch her lips to it till she had cleared off the table and retreated with her wine into the kitchen.

Lenz worked on again industriously till evening. The wine or something else made him restless, so that he was several times on the point of throwing down his tools and going out for a walk. But upon second thoughts he concluded to stay at home, and receive the friends who would be sure to seek him out and relieve his loneliness. No one came, however, except Pröbler. He liked Lenz for being one of the few who did not make fun of him, nor laugh at his constantly refusing to sell any of his works of art. He would mortgage them till he lost all power to redeem them. It was said that the landlord of the Lion, who carried on a large business as commissioner and wholesale dealer, owed Pröbler quite a handsome sum on the works he had pawned to him.

Lenz used to listen with all attention and seriousness while Pröbler would talk of his great discovery of the perpetuum mobile, and how he wanted nothing further to bring his work to perfection than the twenty-four diamonds on which it needed to move. In return, the old man willingly gave his help in setting up the standard regulator which was to benefit the whole district; and he really contributed some valuable suggestions, which Lenz was very glad publicly to give him credit for.

To-day, however, Pröbler came neither about a new discovery nor the perpetuum mobile, but to offer himself as mediator in case Lenz was desirous of marrying. He proposed to him a whole list of marriageable girls, among them the doctor's daughters. "You are too modest," he added in conclusion; "all houses are open to you. Tell me honestly in what direction your preference leads you, and I will see that you are met half-way." Lenz hardly vouchsafed an answer to his proposition, and the old man finally departed. The idea that he could have one of the doctor's daughters lingered in Lenz's mind. They were three noble girls. There was a thoughtfulness--an almost motherly carefulness--about the eldest, while the second played and sang beautifully. How often Lenz had stood before the house and listened to her! Music was his one passion. He longed for it as a thirsty man for a spring of water. How would it seem to have a wife who could play the piano? She should play him all the pieces he wanted to put into his clocks; he could make them sound a great deal better after he had heard them. But no; such a wife would be too aristocratic for him. One who could play the piano would not look after the house and the garden and the stable, as a watchmaker's wife must. He would wait quietly.

When twilight came on, Lenz changed his clothes and went down into the valley.

All houses are open to him, Pröbler had said. All houses? that is as bad as none at all. Unless you can enter a house without interrupting the inmates in their occupation; unless no glance, no expression asks, What have you come for? what plan is on foot? unless you are made to feel at home,--you have no house open to you. Lenz went in imagination up and down the whole village, stopping at every door. Everywhere he would find hands stretched out to greet him, but nowhere a home. Yet he had one friend with whom he would be as much at ease as in his own room. Pilgrim, the case-painter, had wanted to go home with him yesterday after his mother's funeral, but fell back because he was joined by his uncle Petrovitsch. The two despised each other for different reasons; Petrovitsch Pilgrim, for being a poor devil; and Pilgrim, Petrovitsch for being a rich one. To Pilgrim's, therefore, he would go. His friend lived down in the valley with Don Bastian, as he called him, a man who had been a dealer in clocks and made a considerable fortune during a twelve years' residence in Spain. On his return home he had bought a farm, resumed his peasant's clothes, and retained no traces of his Spanish journey except the gold and a couple of Spanish words which he liked to air occasionally, especially in midsummer when the travellers from all quarters of the world returned to their native valley.

CHAPTER VII.

THE LANDLORD'S DAUGHTER PLAYS HOSTESS.

In the public room of the Lion, at a table comfortably laid before the balcony window, sat a young man alone, eating with that relish which is the privilege of a stout young fellow in his twenties, after a day's walk over the mountains. Sometimes, however, his eye wandered thoughtfully from the viands themselves to the heavy silver plate on which they were served. It was a remnant of the good old time, when interest-bearing investments were not the only ones allowed. At last the young man, who was no other than the engineer who had spent the evening before at the doctor's, lighted a cigar and, drawing a brush from his pocket, began smoothing his full, light beard. He had a marked countenance. A high, full forehead projected from under his brown hair, his cheeks were fresh, and there was an expression in his deep-set blue eyes that inspired instant confidence.

A cool evening breeze was blowing in at the open window, quickly dispersing the blue smoke from the cigar.

"Smoking already? then you will have nothing more to eat," said a girl, entering from an adjoining room. She wore a fresh white apron made with a stomacher, and was peculiarly neat and nice in her whole dress. Her figure was slender and supple; her face oval yet full, with bright, intelligent brown eyes; and three tiers of heavy brown braids were wound like a crown about her head.

With a ready flow of words she continued: "You must excuse us; we had done expecting you to dinner, it was so late."

"Everything was excellent. Come and sit down by me a little while, sister-in-law."

"In a minute; as soon as I have cleared up. I cannot sit down with the things all standing about so."

"You must have everything as neat and orderly as yourself."

"Thank you for the compliment. I am glad you have not spent them all at the doctor's."

"Come back as soon as you can; I've ever so much to tell you."

After leaving the guest alone again for a while, the landlord's daughter returned with a piece of knitting-work in her hand, and took a seat opposite him at the table. "Well, let me hear," she said.

The engineer told her how he had been accompanying the doctor on his daily round over the mountains, and could not sufficiently praise his wondrous insight into the life of the people. He found them as the doctor had described, industrious and pious, yet without bigotry.

"We have been into three or four inns to-day," he said. "Generally, when you enter a country tavern of a summer's noon, you find some miserable creature besotting himself on a bench behind the table, half asleep over his stale beer or schnapps, who will stare at every new-comer, and brag and rail in some unintelligible fashion. It is a very common sight in other places, but I saw nothing of the sort here."

"Our mayor, the doctor," said Annele, "shows no mercy to drunkards, and we are principled against giving to one."

The engineer entered with enthusiasm into a description of the doctor's character. Wherever he went, the day seemed to grow brighter. His honest sympathy brought something like contentment even into the huts of the poor, while the confidence which his character as well as his words inspired everywhere imparted fresh courage.

The girl listened in some embarrassment to this glowing description, and only answered as she pressed a knitting-needle to her lips, "O yes, the doctor is a true friend of the poor."

"He is your friend too; he said a great deal of good of you."

"Did he? That was because he was out in the open air; he does not dare speak well of me at home. His five womenkind would not let him. I must except the old mayoress, though; she is always kind."

"And are not the others? I should have thought--"

"I don't want to speak ill of them or any one else. I desire to be thankful I have no need to exalt myself at the expense of others, to help myself out of another's purse, as old Marie Lenz used to say. Thousands of persons are passing in and out here who can let the whole world know what we are. A hotel is not like a private house, where the family can appear most loving to one another, and keep everything in beautiful order for two or three days, while a visitor is present, and then, behind his back, be ready to scratch each other's eyes out, and let the housekeeping go at sixes and sevens; or, where a young lady can begin to sing when she sees a gentleman going by, or can take her work into the garden and make herself ornamental. But I don't want to speak ill of anybody, only--" here Annele slipped as by accident into the familiar German "thou." "Oh! I beg your pardon; I forgot I was not talking to my brother-in-law, or I should not have said 'thou.'"

"I have no objection to it. Let us say 'thou' to one another."

"Not for the world! I cannot stay, if we are to talk in that way. I wonder what keeps father so long?" said the landlord's daughter, blushing.

"Where is your father gone?"

"He had to see to his business, but he may be back any minute. I wish he would give up business. What is the use of his working so hard? He thinks he could not live without it. A man might as well die as give up business, he says; watching and working, thinking and planning, keep one's faculties awake. And I believe he is right. For my part, I cannot imagine how any one in youth and health can sit and play the piano all the morning, or dilly-dally about the house, singing. To turn your hand to this thing and that keeps you wide awake. To be sure, if you count what we women earn in money it is not much; but to keep a house in good order is worth something."

"Yes, indeed," said the engineer; "the devotion of people to their work here is wonderful. Many of the clockmakers work fourteen hours a day. They deserve great praise for it."

The girl cast a look of surprise at him. What have those stupid clockmakers to do with the matter? Couldn't he, or wouldn't he, understand what she meant?

There came a pause which the engineer broke by asking about the landlady.

"Mother is in the garden, picking beans. Let us go and find her, for she cannot leave her work."

"No, I'd rather stay as we are. Tell me, sister-in-law,--I may call you so without offence, I hope,--is not the doctor's oldest daughter, Amanda, a ladylike, amiable girl?"

"Amanda? why should she not be? she is old enough. She is high-shouldered, too, as you would see if her city dressmaker did not pad her so skilfully." The girl bit her lip. How silly to have said that! He was thinking of Bertha all the time he asked about Amanda. "Bertha, now," she added, recovering herself, "is a merry--"

"Yes, a noble girl," interrupted the young man, then suddenly stooped to pick up a needle the landlord's daughter had dropped under the table. He seemed vexed at having betrayed himself, and hastened to change the subject.

"The doctor told me a great deal about Pilgrim yesterday."

"What is there to tell? The doctor can make a story out of everything."

"Who is Petrovitsch? They say you know all about him."

"No more than every one knows. He dines here every day, and pays when he is done. He is an obstinate old curmudgeon, as rich as a jewel and as hard. He lived ever so many years abroad, and cares for nobody. Only one thing he takes delight in, and that is the avenue of cherry-trees leading to the town. A row of crab-apple trees used to stand there, and Petrovitsch--"

"Why is he called Petrovitsch?"

"His name is Peter, but he lived among the Servians so long that people got into the way of calling him Petrovitsch."

"Tell me more about the avenue."

"He was in the habit of walking about with a knife in his hand, and lopping off the superfluous branches by the roadside. One day, the superintendent of the roads arrested him for mutilating the trees, so he had a new row of cherry-trees planted at his own expense, and for six years has had the fruit picked before it ripened, that thieves might not injure the trees. They have grown beautifully, certainly. But he cares nothing for his fellow-men. See, there goes his only brother's child, Lenz of the Morgenhalde, who can boast of having received no more from his uncle than he could put on the point of a pin."

"That is Lenz,--is it? A fine-looking fellow he is, with a delicate face, just as I had imagined him. Does he always stoop like that when he walks?"

"No, only now, because he is feeling so badly at his mother's death. He is a good fellow, though a little too soft-hearted. I know two eyes that are looking out at him from a vine-covered house, wishing they might tempt him in; and the eyes belong to Bertha."

"Indeed? Is there any engagement between them?" asked the engineer, the color mounting to his forehead.

"I don't suppose they are engaged, but she would be glad enough to catch him; for he has a pretty property, while she has nothing but a pretty straw hat and a pair of ragged stockings."

The landlord's daughter--or Annele of the Lion, as she was commonly called--congratulated herself on having administered this bitter pill, and quite forgot her own vexation in delight at the pain she had caused.

"Where are you going?" she continued, as the young man took his hat, and prepared to depart.

"I want a farther walk, and think of going up the Spannreute."

"It is beautiful, but as steep as the side of a house."

Annele hurried into the back garden as soon as he left, and watched him. He did, in fact, go a little way up the mountain, but soon retraced his steps, and went down the valley towards the doctor's.

"Plague on you!" she said to herself; "not another kind word shall you get from me."

CHAPTER VIII.

THE DEPARTED SAINT AND THE NEW MOTHER.

"He is not at home," cried Don Bastian's wife, as Lenz came up the slope to the house. "He must have gone to see you. Did you not meet him?"

"No; is his room open?"

"Yes."

"I will go up awhile," he said, and approached the familiar room. But, on opening the door, all power to enter forsook him. There stood his mother smiling upon him. His first thought, on recovering his self-possession, was one of gratitude to the faithful friend who had fixed upon the canvas those dear features, so honest and kindly, before their memory had faded. "He is always my good angel," he said to himself. "He was doing me service when he could not be with me, and such a service!--the greatest in all the world."

Long and fixedly, through gathering tears, Lenz gazed at the beloved face. "While I have eyes left, they shall look upon her. O if I could only hear her speak! if the voice of the departed could only be brought back!" He could hardly tear himself away. It was so strange to have his mother there alone, looking and looking with no one to look back at her. Not till it grew too dark to see did he leave the room. "My tears must cease here," he said to himself, as he turned away. "Whatever I feel shall be shut in my own breast; no one shall call me unmanly." As he passed the doctor's house, a sound of music reached him through the open windows. He distinguished the words of a foreign song sung by a powerful baritone voice that belonged, he knew, to no one in the valley. Whose could it be? A beautiful voice, to whomever it belonged.

"Now, Miss Bertha," he heard the stranger say, "you must sing to me."

"Not now, Mr. Storr; we shall be going to tea soon. Later in the evening we will sing together. Meanwhile I want you to look over this piece of music."

Aroused to a consciousness of his long fasting by the mention of supper, Lenz suddenly formed a bold resolution, and with a firmer step and more erect carriage went straight towards the town, and into the Lion Inn.

"Good evening, Lenz. I am glad you remember your old friends in your grief. Not a minute has passed that I have not spoken your name, and everybody that has come in through the day has talked of you. Has not your right ear burned? You will surely be rewarded in this life, dear Lenz, for your devotion to your blessed mother. She and I were the best of friends, as you know, though we did not see each other as often as we should have liked; for she did not leave home much, nor I either. Will you have a glass of the new wine, or the old? Better take the new; it is right good, and will not fly into your head. You look so red and heated!--of course, after losing such a mother"--Here the landlady of the Lion--for she it was who thus condoled with Lenz--expressed by a wave of her hand that her feelings would not let her say more.

"But what can we expect?" she began again, while setting the bottle and glass on the table. "We are mortals, after all. Your mother lived to be seventy-one,--a whole year beyond, the allotted age. To-morrow I may have to follow her. With God's help I too will leave behind a good name for my children. Not that I pretend to compare myself with your mother,--who could? But now might I venture to give you a little bit of advice? I mean it for your good."

"Certainly; I am always glad of good advice."

"I only want to warn you against your too tender heart, against letting your grief take too entire possession of you. You won't be offended,--will you?"

"No, no; why should I be? On the contrary, you show me, as I never knew before, how many good friends my mother had, and how fortunate I am to inherit them."

"You deserve them all. You are--"

"Welcome, welcome, Lenz!" interrupted a clear, youthful voice, and a full, plump hand was held out to him, behind which appeared as full and fresh a face. It was Annele of the Lion, who came in with lights. "Why did you not let me know, mother, that Lenz was here?" she added, turning to the landlady.

"You are not the only one that is privileged to talk with a young man at twilight," replied the mother, with a meaning smile.

Annele saw that Lenz did not fancy the joke, and continued, without heeding her mother's words: "You must see by my looks, dear Lenz, how I have wept for your mother these last two days. I have hardly got over it yet. Such people ought not to die. To think of all the good she did being so suddenly swept away! I can imagine how your room seems to you; how you look into all the corners, fancying the door must open; that she cannot have gone away and left you; she must come back. All day I have found myself thinking, Poor Lenz, if I could only help him! I should be so glad to bear a little of his burden for him! We looked for you here to dinner to-day. Your uncle fully expected you. He always insists on having dinner served the instant the clock strikes; but to-day he said, 'Wait a little, Annele; keep back the dinner awhile. Lenz will surely come; he never will sit down all by himself up there.' And Pilgrim said you would not fail to come and dine with him at his table. Pilgrim takes his meals here, you know. He is like a brother to me, and so fond of you! Your uncle always has his dinner served at a little table by himself, and likes me to sit down and chat with him. He is an odd man, but as clever as the Evil One. Don't disappoint us at dinner to-morrow, will you? And now what will you have for supper?"

"I have no appetite for anything. I only wish I could sleep on and on for weeks, and forget myself and all that concerns me."

"You will feel differently by and by.--Yes, I am coming!" cried Annele to some teamsters who had just sat down at another table. She quickly supplied their wants, and then resumed her place behind Lenz's chair, keeping her hand on the back of it while answering the questions of the other guests. The touch thrilled like an electric shock through his whole frame. The sight of others at their supper presently reminded him of his own hunger. In an instant Annele was in the kitchen, and back again with fresh table linen. Her hands laid the cloth and set on the dishes so invitingly, and her voice pressed him so cordially to eat, that his supper relished as he had thought food never would relish again.

Who so neat and nimble as Annele, so ready and quick at repartee? Pity she lets her fondness for making fools of people spoil the charm of her wit.

Lenz had no sooner finished his first bottle than she was ready with a fresh one, and filling his glass herself.