idden since Hansgeorge's
misfortune.

The dinner was uncommonly merry. Immediately after it, Kitty slipped
out into the kitchen, and came back with the memorable pipe in her
mouth: no one, at least, could say that it was not the same. Kitty
puffed away a little with a wry face, and then handed it to Hansgeorge,
saying, "There, take it: you have kept your word like a man, and now
you may smoke as much as you please. I don't mind it a bit."

Hansgeorge blushed up to the eyes, but shook his head. "What I have
said is said, and not a mouse shall bite a crumb off: I'll never smoke
again in all my life. But, Kitty, I may kiss you after you've done
smoking, mayn't I?"

He strained her to his heart, and then confessed, laughing, that he had
overheard a part of Kitty's talk with Little Red Meyer, and had
supposed they were speaking of the maid at the Eagle. The joke was much
relished by all the company.

[Illustration: The pipe was hung up over the wedding-bed.]

The pipe was hung up in state over the wedding-bed of the young couple;
and Hansgeorge often points to it in proof of the maxim that love and
resolution will enable a man to overcome any weakness or foible.

* * * * *

Many years are covered by a few short words. Hansgeorge and Kitty are
venerable grandparents, enjoying a ripe old age in the midst of their
descendants. The pipe is an heirloom in which their five sons have a
common property: not one of them has ever learned to smoke.

MANOR-HOUSE FARMER'S VEFELA.

1.

Not many will divine the orthography of this name in the Almanac; yet
it is by no means uncommon, and the fate of the poor child who bore it
reminds one strongly of the German story of her afflicted patroness,
the holy St. Genevieve.

The grandest house in all the village, which has such a broad front
toward the street that all the wandering journeymen stop there to ask
for a little "assistance," once belonged to Vefela's father: the houses
standing on each side of it were his barns. The father is dead, the
mother is dead, and the children are dead. The grand house is now a
linen-factory. The barns have been altered into houses, and Vefela has
disappeared without a trace.

One thing alone remains, and will probably remain for all time to come.
Throughout the village the grand house still goes by the name of the
Manor-Farmer's House; for old Z