y 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, 'Fran