"See how I reach my little hand
Far over to your distant land.

"That's my Bat's hand: I drew it, dear mother, just as he laid it on
the paper, because there was room enough."

Ivo was asked to read Mat's letter also; but he promised to do so
another time, and took his leave, the grateful mother, who was wiping
the tears from her eyes, having accompanied him to the door. Outside of
the village he saw his sister Mag walking in the meadow with Xavier. He
now understood what it was that often made her so disputatious and
discontented: her father would not tolerate her acquaintance with "the
American," as he called Xavier.

With a skip and a bound, Ivo shook off the oppressive dignity of his
station. He danced and sung as he had formerly done, always clearing
the heaps of broken stones at the roadside at a bound. The letter of
Aloys had made a great impression upon him. He saw in it the picture of
a truly honest living,--a life rendered happy by hard work and
independence. For the first time he perceived how all the corporal
powers of a student lie fallow, and learned to see that it was this
which often so greatly "unsettles" the minds of those most favored by
natural endowments among the youth of a country. He thought of going to
America to be parson and farmer at one and the same time, to go
visiting his sister, to travel from farm to farm, instructing the
children, and fostering the effort to look upward among all with whom
he conversed.

Absorbed with such reflections, he reached Horb. The town did not look
near so fine, nor the houses so large, as before: he had seen larger
ones. The chaplain was delighted with his former pupil, and Mrs.
Hankler, who was ill in bed, said that it made her well only to see
him. The Judge's sons were no longer there; for, as it may be
remembered, their father had been transferred to another district.

It was night when Ivo returned home. In the village he found
Constantine leading Peter by the hand, and walking the street with the
half-grown boys, singing. He taught them new songs, and made them laugh
uproariously by recounting all sorts of tricks which he had played upon
his teacher at the convent. Ivo walked with them quietly till they
reached his father's house, when he said, "Good-night," and went in.

Throughout the holidays he was left much to himself. He would either
take solitary walks in the fields, or practise at home on a bugle which
he had borrowed