sleep
well enough; or, if you'd rather, I'll stay up all night: there's a
beautiful star going to rise at two o'clock."

[Illustration: Is it you?]

Ivo was quite ready to sleep with Nat.

"Are you hungry?" inquired Nat, again. "There's a cellar to my house."

He brought bread and milk and made a little fire to warm the milk for
Ivo. Then, taking away the prop by which the rear end of the van was
held above ground during the day, he said, "There! now we can sleep
soundly: the face must be turned toward sunrise."

It often happens that we begin to talk of the most indifferent things
precisely when our minds are full of the most important matters. Ivo
asked, "What do those queer characters mean, formed by the brass studs
in this leather strap?"

"Those are the three great heavenly signs, and they protect the cattle
against evil spirits. That's all I know about them."

As formerly in the days of childhood, Ivo sat at the field-side with
Nat and partook of his frugal fare: but it was night; they were far
from home, and many things had occurred in the mean time.

"How is Emmerence doing?" asked Nat.

"She is my mother's maid now."

"If you weren't going to be a parson, by George, you ought to have
married her."

"So I would have done," said Ivo, with a firm voice, the darkness
concealing the blush which overspread his features.

In answer to Ivo's inquiries in regard to Nat's fortunes, the latter
answered, at length:--

"You're old enough now to be told all about it. Who knows whether I
shall ever see you again? and I want you to hear it all from my own
lips; for you're my heart's brother. I wasn't born in your parts, but
on the other side of the Black Forest, toward the Rhine. As you come
out of Freiburg, and go through the 'Kingdom of Heaven' and the 'Valley
of Hell,' just as you get to the top of the 'Hell-Scramble' you see on
your right a valley in which runs the Treisam, turning the wheels of
ever so many foundries, saw-mills, and gristmills; and, if you go up
the hill on the other side,--they call it the 'Wind-Corner,'--you see a
great farm-house, the Beste farmer's house,--and he was my father. You
may think it's a pretty fine sort of farm: it has sixty or seventy
cows, and no need of buying a handful of hay.

"They don't live in villages there, as you do and as they do hereabout.
Each farmer lives by himself in the midst of his own lands. The house
is all made of wood: only the foundation is of sto