til the Colonel would speak of it himself."

"Pray speak a few kind words to my mother, for my sake," said Carl; and
I saw the old spinner sitting on the lower step of the depot. She gazed
into vacancy as if she were dreaming with open eyes.

"This gentleman will take you home with him," said Carl to his mother.

"Then you will not take me along? I must go home--home--home," said the
old woman; and Carl told me that Rothfuss had brought the conscripts to
this spot, and was in a neighboring inn where he was feeding the
horses.

I endeavored to persuade the spinner to control her feelings. She
murmured a few words that I could not understand, and which Carl
explained to me. She had, by hard savings, gotten seven thalers
together, and wanted Carl to take them with him, because he would need
them while away; and that now she was quite inconsolable, because he
wanted to leave the money at home with her.

I took the money from her, and promised to send it to Carl whenever he
should need it, through my son-in-law the Colonel.

"And how is the great lady?" said the old spinner. "She ought to have
married my Carl--she always looked at him with so much favor; and if he
were now married, he would not have to go to war."

His mother's words were unintelligible to me, and it was with a sad
smile that Carl interpreted them.

"Why have you not told her about Marie?"

"I have done so, but she wishes to know nothing about her."

Ludwig, accompanied by Ikwarte, started towards the Rhine. He said that
he did not yet know how he could take part in the war, as he was an
American citizen; but he was resolved not to remain a quiet spectator.

Carl's parting from his mother was heart-rending. She refused to get on
our wagon, and Carl, with tears in his eyes, lifted her in his arms and
placed her there. During the greater part of our journey home, she
bewailed the loss of her son, and we drove on in silence, for we felt
so sad that we could not utter a word.

Martella was the first to speak, saying, "It is, after all, the
greatest happiness to have a mother."

I could well understand what it was that agitated her.

Up at the top of the mountain, where we always stopped to rest our
horses, there is a large and shady beech-tree, to which was fastened
the image of a saint.

While at a distance I could see a white object on the tree, and when I
drew near, I recognized it. It was the proclamation of the King of
Prussia, in which, i