ter drawing
straws, and I asked it as casually as I could, though it did not sound
as casual as I wanted, because I didn't know how:

"What is the Moral Sense, sir?"

He looked down, surprised, over his great spectacles, and said, "Why, it
is the faculty which enables us to distinguish good from evil."

It threw some light, but not a glare, and I was a little disappointed,
also to some degree embarrassed. He was waiting for me to go on, so, in
default of anything else to say, I asked, "Is it valuable?"

"Valuable? Heavens! lad, it is the one thing that lifts man above the
beasts that perish and makes him heir to immortality!"

This did not remind me of anything further to say, so I got out, with
the other boys, and we went away with that indefinite sense you have
often had of being filled but not fatted. They wanted me to explain, but
I was tired.

We passed out through the parlor, and there was Marget at the spinnet
teaching Marie Lueger. So one of the deserting pupils was back; and an
influential one, too; the others would follow. Marget jumped up and
ran and thanked us again, with tears in her eyes--this was the third
time--for saving her and her uncle from being turned into the street,
and we told her again we hadn't done it; but that was her way, she never
could be grateful enough for anything a person did for her; so we let
her have her say. And as we passed through the garden, there was Wilhelm
Meidling sitting there waiting, for it was getting toward the edge of
the evening, and he would be asking Marget to take a walk along the
river with him when she was done with the lesson. He was a young lawyer,
and succeeding fairly well and working his way along, little by little.
He was very fond of Marget, and she of him. He had not deserted along
with the others, but had stood his ground all through. His faithfulness
was not lost on Marget and her uncle. He hadn't so very much talent, but
he was handsome and good, and these are a kind of talents themselves and
help along. He asked us how the lesson was getting along, and we told
him it was about done. And maybe it was so; we didn't know anything
about it, but we judged it would please him, and it did, and didn't cost
us anything.

Chapter 5

On the fourth day comes the astrologer from his crumbling old tower up
the valley, where he had heard the news, I reckon. He had a private talk
with us, and we told him what we could, for we were mightily in dread
of hi