t, and closing the door behind her. "He had a good work to do
here too. I beg your pardon, but really I never knew such a thing in all
my life. He runs away just when he was most wanted. And no excuse for it
either. If he had married or set up for himself, that would have been a
different thing, for a man likes a business and a household of his own.
That would have been God's will, and I should not have said a word
against it. But to run off from the counting-house after sheep and cows,
and noblemen's families and Poles, when he was made so much of, and was
such a favorite here! Do you know what I call that, Mr. Baumann?" said
she, the bows on her cap shaking with her eagerness; "I call that
ungrateful. And what are we to do here? This house is getting quite
desolate. Fink gone, Jordan gone, Wohlfart gone, Pix gone--you are
almost the only one remaining of the old set, and you can't do every
thing."

"No," said Baumann, embarrassed; "and I, too, am very awkwardly placed.
I had fixed last autumn as the term of my stay here, and now spring is
coming on, and I have not followed the voice that calls me."

"Stuff and nonsense!" cried the cousin, in horror, "you are not going
away too?"

"I must," said Baumann, looking down; "I have had letters from my
English brethren; they blame my lukewarmness. I fear I have done very
wrong in not leaving you before; but when I looked at the heaps of
letters, and Mr. Schroeter's anxious face, and thought what hard times
these were, and that the house had lost most of its best hands, I was
withheld. I too wish that Wohlfart would return; he is wanted here."

"He must return," cried the cousin; "it is his Christian duty. Write and
tell him so. Certainly we are not very cheerful here," said she,
confidentially; "he may have a pleasanter time of it yonder. The Poles
are a merry, riotous set."

"Alas!" replied Mr. Baumann, in the same confidential tone, "he does not
lead a merry life. I am afraid he has a hard time of it there; his
letters are by no means cheerful."

"You don't say so!" said the cousin, taking a chair.

Baumann drew his near her and went on.

"He writes anxiously; he takes a gloomy view of the times, and fears
fresh disturbances."

"God forbid!" cried the good woman; "we have had enough of them."

"He lives in an unsettled district, with bad men around, and the police
regulations seem to be quite inadequate."

"There are fearful dens of robbers there," chimed in th