so well
in the world--better than millions--and master," said she, kneeling
down before me and clasping my knee, "I will surely do all in my power
to deserve this happiness. If I only knew of something good and hard
that I might do. Tell me if there is such a thing; I will do it
gladly."

It seemed that night as if an inexhaustible spring had begun to bubble
up in the heart of the child.

She sat down quite near me and told me, with a pleased smile, that
mother had bidden her to go to bed; but that she had stealthily gotten
up, had sent Balbina, the servant, to bed, and had herself watched for
me; and that she now felt as if she did not care to sleep again.

"I am living in eternity, and in eternity there is no sleep," she
repeated several times.

The child was so excited that I thought it best to engage her mind in
some other direction. I asked her about Ernst's plan of emigration. She
told me that he had had that in view some time ago, but had now given
up the idea.

We remained together for some time longer, and when I told her that she
should always call me father now, she cried out with a happy voice:

"That fills my cup of joy! Now I shall go to bed. He whom you have once
addressed as 'father' can never find it in his heart to send you out
into the world. I shall stay here until they carry me over to the
graveyard yonder; but may it be a long while before that happens!
Father, good night!"

How strange things seem linked together! On the very day that Funk had
so unfeelingly dragged the child's name before the public, her heart
had awakened to a grateful sense of the world's kindness.

CHAPTER XIX.

Nothing so nerves a man for the battle with the outer world as the
consciousness of his having a pleasant home, not merely a large and
finely arranged household, but a home in which there reigns an
atmosphere of hope and affection, and where, in days of sorrow, that
which is best in us is met by the sympathy of those who surround us.
Through Gustava, all this fell to my lot. Although the battle with the
world would, at times, almost render me distracted, she would again
restore my wonted spirits; and it is to her faithful and affectionate
care that I ascribe the fact that the long struggle did not exhaust me.
She judged of men and actions with never-failing equanimity, and her
very glances seemed to beautify what they rested upon. Where I could
see naught but spite or