o pray for
strength and guidance. It seemed like a Providence, that as I stepped
out of church Erich came towards me. And now there was no longer a
doubt in my mind. We were suited to each other in rank and in means,
and he was even then a thriving man. Therefore I went up to him, took
his hand, and said, 'Are you still of the same mind towards me?' 'Yes,
ever and always,' he replied. 'Will you marry a girl who honours and
respects, but who does not love you--though that may come later?' I
asked again. 'Yes, it will come!' he answered; and upon this we joined
hands. I went home to my mistress. I wore the gold ring that the son
had given me at my heart. I could not put it on my finger in the
daytime, but only in the evening when I went to bed. I kissed the ring
again and again, till my lips almost bled, and then I gave it to my
mistress, and told her the banns were to be put up next week for me
and the glovemaker. Then my mistress put her arms round me and kissed
me. _She_ did not say that I was good for nothing; but perhaps I was
better then than I am now, though the misfortunes of life had not yet
found me out. In a few weeks we were married; and for the first year
the world went well with us: we had a journeyman and an apprentice,
and you, Martha, lived with us as our servant."

"Oh, you were a dear, good mistress," cried Martha. "Never shall I
forget how kind you and your husband were!"

"Yes, those were our good years, when you were with us. We had not
any children yet. The student I never saw again.--Yes, though, I saw
him, but he did not see me. He was here at his mother's funeral. I saw
him stand by the grave. He was pale as death, and very downcast, but
that was for his mother; afterwards, when his father died, he was away
in a foreign land, and did not come back hither. I know that he never
married; I believe he became a lawyer. He had forgotten me; and even
if he had seen me again, he would not have known me, I look so ugly.
And that is very fortunate."

And then she spoke of her days of trial, and told how misfortune had
come as it were swooping down upon them.

"We had five hundred dollars," she said; "and as there was a house in
the street to be bought for two hundred, and it would pay to pull it
down and build a new one, it was bought. The builder and carpenter
calculated the expense, and the new house was to cost ten hundred and
twenty! Erich had credit, and borrowed the money in the chief town,
but