t this friendly spirit. He saw the good
hearts of the villagers; and he also saw how firm a footing he had
gained in their affections, and how much he had bettered the prospect
of exerting a beneficent influence over them.

Mankind are no longer accustomed to receive benefits emanating from no
other motive than the general desire to do them good. They have been
betrayed and disappointed so often that now they meet the
philanthropist with intuitive suspicion. They think so very general an
aspiration must cloak some very particular design. They will permit no
one to love them unreservedly but those who are related to them by some
special bond of kindred or other relationship.

Winter stalked into the village with rapid strides. The villagers
remained at home and enjoyed what their toil had gathered. Threshing,
and a little manuring, was the only kind of labor that could be
performed. When the grain was threshed, all was silent. Here and there
a travelling peddler might be heard crying "Spindles! wives' spindles!"
The snow drifted about the street, and all cuddled around the genial
tile stove. At such times an evil spirit would walk in the village in
broad daylight,--the spirit of idleness. Whomsoever the spirit looked
at was doomed to yawn and gossip and quarrel. The time of rest was not
a time of recreation, because there had been no exertion to rest from.
Young men sat for whole days in the tavern, playing cards; and, though
so sorely burdened with excess of time, they never thought of going
home till the last stroke of the "police-hour" of eleven had brought in
the beadle and the landlord's inevitable notice to quit. Others went to
bed early and drowned their time in sleep; while still others soiled it
with wickedness.

[Illustration: Here and there a travelling peddler might be heard.]

Idleness is the root of all evil. The industrious alone are
intrinsically cheerful, peaceable and well meaning; idlers easily lean
to gambling and drunkenness, and are prone to wrangling, quarrels, and
treachery. It is for this reason, and this alone, that all the vices
love to dwell among the so-called upper classes of society.

While the greater part of the villagers were thus vegetating, the
teacher had awakened to a double existence. It sometimes happens that a
man who has had a violent fever rises from his bed an inch or two
taller than before. Thus our friend, while his flying pulses studied
Hedwig's life and being, had made