e by walking through the meadow,
past the house, and over the ridge of the mountain. Bubby doubled and
trebled the distance by leaping back and forth across the gullies which
to the right of Lenz's house the water had channelled down into the
valley. The gullies were dry at this season, but served in spring and
summer to carry off the rushing water. Petrovitsch was very loving
towards his dog, and in moments of special affection would call him
Sonny. The old man had come home rich from his foreign journeyings. His
neighbors naturally estimated his property at three times its actual
value, but it was really considerable. The longing for home which the
inhabitants of the mountains and of Upper Germany never outgrow had
brought him, in his old age, back to his native valley, where he
lived, after his fashion, a contented life. His happiest time was
in midsummer, when the merchants from all quarters of the world
assembled at the Lion, and all the tongues of the earth were spoken
there,--Spanish, Italian, English, Russian, and Dutch,--while in the
midst of them, from the very same men, would be heard good Black Forest
German. Then was Petrovitsch a person of consequence, and great was his
pride at being able to show off his knowledge of Spanish and Russian.
Whereas in ordinary times he always left the Lion punctually at an
appointed hour, then he would spend whole days there, staying sometimes
even into the night. And when the market was over he stayed behind, and
amused himself with calculating how far on their way such and such
merchants were who had gone to the Lower Danube.

Petrovitsch kept the whole country in suspense. It was generally
understood, though he had not said so, that he meant to found a great
charitable institution for the neighborhood. Every room of the great
house he had built for himself had a stove in it, signifying, according
to the common report, which he neither denied nor confirmed, that he
designed the building as a home for invalid workmen. Lenz, his only
heir, was left in uncertainty also; for it was naturally taken for
granted that a considerable part of the fortune would be left to him.
Lenz himself, however, counted not much upon it. He paid his uncle all
proper respect, but was man enough to take care of himself. He bade his
apprentice keep always in good order the path where his uncle liked to
walk, without any reference having been made to the attention on either
side. The cackling of Lenz