ccent, and they both speak well, particularly the master cooper, who
like most of his countrymen was a true journeyman, and travelled all
over the country to practise his trade before he was drafted off to the
army to fight in the Franco-German War."

"Oh tell us the Schwartz love story!" said Sarah Jorring, "and try to
tell it just as you heard it; it would be so much more sentimental."

"But not in German," we cried, "that wouldn't be fair, to give us a
German exercise under the pretence of a story; we'll have it in
English."

"Well, you shall have it in something like the original German-English,
which seems to me very much to resemble real old English, and sounds to
my ear more simple and more fit for story-telling than the more modern
tongue. You must try to picture to yourselves Mrs. Schwartz when she was
younger and paler, and wore a round white cap and great silver
ear-rings, and was in fact a slender, rather pale pretty girl with a
plaintive look in her great blue eyes, and a voice soft and low. The
story arose from our talking about the fashion of Christmas-trees having
been adopted in England, and the recollection of the last Christmas-tree
that she had seen at her old home with her former mistress caused her to
say with a deep sigh, 'Ach! _Ich habe gelebt und geliebet_;' so I will
call the story 'I have lived and loved,' and you must try to fancy that
Mrs. Schwartz is speaking."

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VI.

"I HAVE LIVED AND LOVED."

"SO we will hang up the Polichinello that thy dear father sent thee from
afar, little Loisl; for who knows but thou and Heinrich, and I, thy
mother, may see him yet before the eve of Christmas, and while the snow
is on the ground. We will keep the tree here, near the window, and
should he come not, we will light it afresh every night that it may
shine a welcome to the dear father, and keep our hearts alive with
hope."

This is what I heard my dear mistress say when it wanted yet a week to
Christmas in the year 1871, and the master, her husband, was still there
with the Crown Prince before Paris along with his regiment. He was
ober-lieutenant, one of many going to fight against France, and ever
since the beginning, till after Sedan, after Domremy, after Metz, had
been with his men in the camp, and wherever there was much danger always
in the front. It was wonder to me how I had come to learn all about the
war and the campaign, but girl as I was (Lisba is but a