er, he is almost always
at home. He is well-skilled in that game of chess which requires but
one player. He lost his father while he was quite young, and in order
to be able to aid his mother and his many brothers and sisters, he
married a wealthy, but half-witted girl, whom he never cared to take
into society. Politics had no attractions for him.

Formerly, if a beggar applied to him for alms he would have him sent up
into his room, and would ask him, "What good will it do if I give you
that which will only help you for a moment or so? Come and listen"--and
he would then read the beggar a sermon, or a chapter out of the Bible.
But, of late years, the beggars had piously avoided his house.

Our school-master, on the other hand, is a clever and wide-awake man.
He, too, had taken part in the political movements of 1848, but when
placed on trial was acquitted. Ever since that time, he has held aloof
from political affairs. He married a woman who is exceedingly clever,
and who brought him some money besides.

The clergyman has no children: the school-master has three--two sons,
one of whom is a merchant down by the fortress; the other is a
machinist, and resides in America. He is said to have quite a large
business. The daughter is the wife of the inspector of roads. The
school-master is quite proud that he can say, "If I were to give up my
position to-morrow, I could afford to live without work"--a state of
affairs to which the skill and economy of his wife has greatly
contributed. The couple lead a loving and tranquil life. They are hale
and hearty, and, as it often happens when two persons have lived
together many years, they have grown to look very much alike. Their
garden was filled with teeming flower-beds. Florists from the
neighboring watering-places would come daily to purchase flowers, and
thus the garden had become a source of considerable profit.

But now that the war had emptied the watering-places, the flowers were
left to perish for want of purchasers.

Annette instructed the school-master's wife in the art of drying
flowers, and making pretty bouquets of them.

Carl's mother, who lived in a little house out by the rock, worked
every day in the garden of the school-master's wife.

Annette was attracted by the woman. She was short and thin, old and
stooping, but had wonderfully clear and sparkling eyes, and Annette
felt quite happy to think that this old woman, who was almost deaf,
could by means of he