He gave us further particulars of the capture of Metz, and of the march
towards Paris. At the name of Paris, my brother-in-law's face became
flushed and excited. "That you will never get, never!" he said; "the
world will go to pieces, first! But Metz, indeed! And 173,000 men!
believe in nothing after this!"

I told Joseph of Ernst; I must impart it to some one. But Joseph
urgently implored me to eradicate every thought of the lost one from my
breast.

I went to Strasburg, but the governor there had nothing to tell me. I
was so weak that I longed for home again; there I hoped to regain my
strength. I journeyed homewards with Martha.

At the last railway station I met a large force of Tyrolese woodsmen
that, upon Joseph's order, had been sent to work for him in Alsace, and
as I neared home, I saw, here and there, clearings in the woods. The
tempest had also raged here, and the newspapers brought the
intelligence that over the whole continent great devastation had been
occasioned by it.

CHAPTER XI.

We had much to do to set up trees that had been prostrated by the wind;
for dead trees, because of their harboring all sorts of noxious
insects, imperil the existence of a whole forest.

There came good letters from Julius, Richard, and the vicar, and we saw
war life from three quite different aspects. Bertha sent us letters
from the Colonel. He wrote but briefly. He must have been suffering
great hardships, especially in the protracted rains; but he wrote,
"when one feels inspired, he can endure much."

They tell me of the noble courage of the olden time. When man fights
with man, he receives invigorating impulse from the personal struggle.
But to stand under a shower of fire, then advance on the enemy and be
struck by far-carrying bullets, without firing a shot until one is at
the right distance--all that is much more.

Away off, the cannon thundered; we at home heard nothing but the
measured beat of the thrasher, and that lasted a long while, for we
lacked men at home.

When it rained and snowed, and we sat sheltered in the room, we
naturally fell to thinking of those who, for nights and weeks, fought
on the now thoroughly drenched soil, and for their brief rest had no
couch but the wet or icy earth.

Ludwig wrote from Hamburg that he was about going to America. He was to
make the journey with the secret approval and authority of an officer
of high rank, in order to prevent t