nce he would be lost to us." He passed his hand over
her head, took up his hat, and left the room.

"Yet he himself is always thinking of Wohlfart," cried the cousin from
her window-niche. "This very day he was cross-examining old Sturm about
Karl and the property. I declare I don't understand the man."

"<i>I</i> understand him," sighed Sabine, and sat down again to her work. The
cousin pouted: "You and he are just alike; there is no speaking to you
on certain subjects." And she left the room.

Sabine left the room. The fire crackled in the stove, the pendulum of
the clock swung backward and forward monotonously. "Ever so! ever so!"
it seemed to say. Those pictures of her parents had been looking calmly
down upon her, their last child, for many years. Her youth was passing
away silent, serious, still as those painted forms. Sabine bowed her
head and listened. Hush! little fairy steps in the corner of the room.
Hark again! a merry laugh from a child's lip, and the steps tripped
nearer, and a curly head was laid on her knee, and two little arms
stretched out lovingly to clasp her neck. She bent down and kissed the
air, and listened again to those blessed sounds which swelled her heart
with rapture, and brought tears of joy to her eyes. Alas! she but
grasped at empty air, and nothing was real but the tears that fell into
her lap.

So sat she long till twilight closed in. The vibrations of the pendulum
seemed to fail, the fire grew low in the stove, the pictures dim on the
walls, the room dark and lonely.

At that moment old Sturm's hammer was heard outside. Every stroke fell
strong, vigorous, decided. It sounded through court-yard and house.
Sabine rose: "So it shall be," cried she. "I have twice hoped and
feared, twice it has been an illusion, now it is over. My life is to be
devoted to him to whom I am all. I can not bring to him the husband he
hoped for, and no band of children will twine their arms about his neck.
Yes, things will go on with us as they have done hitherto, always more
silent, always more empty. But me shall he have, and my whole life. My
brother, thou shalt never again feel with regret that thy life and mine
are wanting in joyousness!"

She caught up her little key-basket, and hurried into her brother's
room. Meanwhile the cousin was making up her mind to pay Mr. Baumann a
visit.

Between the cousin and Mr. Baumann there had long been a silent
understanding, and fate now willed that he should b