ter Allertssohn, of whom you have just told me. Leonhard was
older than I, and when he graduated with honor, I was still very weak
in the pandects. But we were always one in heart and soul, so I went
to Holland with him to attend his wedding. Ah, those were days! The
theologians in Jena have actively disputed about the part of the earth,
in which the little garden of Paradise should be sought. I considered
them all fools, and thought: 'There is only one Eden, and that lies in
Holland, and the fairest roses the dew waked on the first sunny morning,
bloom in Delft!'"

At these words Georg shook back his waving locks and hesitated in great
embarrassment, but as no one interrupted him and he saw Barbara's eager
face and the children's glowing cheeks, quietly continued:

"So I came home, and was to learn for the first time, that in life also
beautiful sunny days often end with storms. I found my father ill, and
a few days after my return he closed his eyes in death. I had never seen
any human being die, and the first, the very first, was he, my father."

Georg paused, and deeply moved, passed his hand over his eyes.

"Your father!" cried Barbara, in a tone of cordial sympathy, breaking
the silence. "If we can judge the tree by the apple, he was surely a
splendid man."

The Junker again raised his head, exclaiming with sparkling eyes:

"Unite every good and noble quality, and embody them in the form of a
tall, handsome man, then you will have the image of my father;--and I
might tell you of my mother--"

"Is she still alive?" asked Peter.

"God grant it!" exclaimed the young man. "I have heard nothing from my
family for two months. That is hard. Pleasures smile along every path,
and I like my profession of soldier, but it often grieves me sorely to
hear so little from home. Oh! if one were only a bird, a sunbeam, or a
shooting-star, one might, if only for the twinkling of an eye, learn
how matters go at home and fill the soul with fresh gratitude, or, if it
must be--but I will not think of that. In the valley of the Saale, the
trees are blossoming and a thousand flowers deck all the meadows, just
as they do here, and did there two years ago, when I left home for the
second time.

"After my father's death I was the heir, but neither hunting nor riding
to court, neither singing nor the clinking of beakers could please me.
I went about like a sleep-walker, and it seemed as if I had no right to
live without my father. T