forget that we are as little able to feed twenty idle mouths as is
the owl on the tower."

"Let them work!" cried Fink; "you have here land enough to employ a
hundred hands. Have you no swamps to drain, or ditches to dig? There is
a row of wretched puddles yonder."

"That is work for another season," replied Anton, "the ground is too wet
now."

"Have a hundred acres of forest sown or planted. Does the brook hold out
in the summer?"

"I hear that it does," replied Anton.

"Then turn it to some account."

"Do not forget," said Anton, smiling, "how difficult it would be to get
good workmen with military abilities to come just now into our
ill-renowned district."

"To the devil with your objections!" cried Fink; "send Karl into a
German district, and he will hire you plenty of people."

"You have already heard that we have no money. The baron is not in a
position to carry on greater improvements, with increased expenditure."

"Let me do it, then," replied Fink; "you can repay me when you are
able."

"It is doubtful whether we should ever be able."

"Well, then, he need never know what the men cost."

"He is blind," replied Anton, with a slight tone of reproach; "and I am
in his service, and bound to lay all my accounts before him. Certainly,
he might accept a loan from you after a few scruples, for his views of
his circumstances vary with his moods. But the ladies have no such
illusions. Your presence would be an hourly humiliation to them, if they
were conscious of owing additional comforts to your means."

"And yet they have accepted the greater sacrifice that you have made for
them," said Fink, gravely.

"Perhaps they consider that my humble services entail on me no
sacrifice," replied Anton, blushing. "They are accustomed to me as the
baron's agent. But you are their guest, and their self-respect will
endeavor to conceal from you, as much as possible, the difficulties of
their position. To make your apartment habitable, they have plundered
their own; the very sofa on which you lie is from the young lady's
bed-room."

Fink looked eagerly at the sofa, and settled himself on it again. "As it
does not suit me," said he, "to travel off immediately, you will have
the goodness to point out to me some way of living here with propriety.
Tell me, offhand, something about the mortgages, and the prospects of
the estate; assume for the moment that I am to be the unfortunate
purchaser of this Paradise."

Anton m