how to reward knightly valor
better than with fair words. Let him have the best that cellar and
kitchen afford. Come along, my faithful fellow-traveler. The Rhine wine
expects that, after all your heavy Polish potations, you will do it
honor."

The lamp-lighted room looked the picture of comfort as the four sat down
to dinner. The merchant raised his glass. "Welcome to your country!
Welcome home!" cried Sabine. Anton replied, in a low tone, "I have a
country, I have a home in which I am happy; I owe both to your kindness.
Many an evening, when sitting in some wretched inn, far away among
savage strangers, whose language I imperfectly understood, I have
thought of this table, and of the delight it would be to me to see this
room and your face once more; for it is the bitterest thing on earth to
be alone in hours of relaxation and repose without a friend, without any
thing that one loves."

As he bade them good-night, the principal said, "Wohlfart, I wish to
bind you still more closely to this firm. Jordan is leaving us next
quarter to become a partner in his uncle's business; I can not appoint a
better man than you to fill his place."

When Anton returned to his room, he felt what mortal man is seldom
allowed to feel here below, unpunished by a reverse--that he was
perfectly happy, without a regret and without a wish. He sat on the
sofa, looked at the flowers and at the cushion, and again saw in fancy
Sabine bending over his hand. He had sat there long enjoying this
vision, when his eye fell upon a letter on the table, the postmark "New
York," the direction in Fink's hand.

Fink, when he first left, had written more than once to Anton, but only
a few lines at a time, telling nothing of his occupation, nor his plans
for the future. Then a long interval passed away, during which Anton had
had no tidings from his friend, and only knew that he spent a good deal
of his time in traveling in the Western States of the Union as manager
of the business of which his uncle had been the head, and in the
interest of several other companies in which the deceased had had
shares. But it was with horror that he now read the following letter:

"It must out at last, though I would gladly have kept it from you, poor
boy! I have joined thieves and murderers. If you want any thing of the
kind done, apply to me. I envy a fellow who becomes a villain by choice;
he has at least the pleasure of driving a good bargain with Satan, and
can sele