o 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