aised her hand, crossed
herself, and cried, 'God be with you, James! Forever and ever, Amen!'
she added in a lower voice, and was gone.

"Not until then did I regain the use of my limbs. I hurried after her
and called to her from the landing, whereupon she stopped on the
stairway, but when I went down a step she called up, 'Stay where you
are,' descended the rest of the way, and passed out of the door.

"I've known hard days since then, but none to equal this one. The
following was scarcely less hard to bear, for I wasn't quite clear as to
how things stood with me. The next morning, therefore, I stole over to
the grocery store in the hope of possibly receiving some explanation. No
one seemed to be stirring, and so I walked past and looked into the
store. There I saw a strange woman weighing goods and counting out
change. I made bold to enter, and asked whether she had bought the
store. 'Not yet,' she said. 'And where are the owners?' 'They left this
morning for Langenlebarn.' [63] 'The daughter, too?' I stammered. 'Why,
of course,' she said, 'she went there to be married.'

"In all probability the woman told me then what I learned subsequently
from others. The Langenlebarn butcher, the same one I had met in the
store on my first visit, had been pursuing the girl for some time with
offers of marriage, which she had always rejected until finally, a few
days before, pressed by her father and in utter despair, she had given
her consent. Father and daughter had departed that very morning, and
while we were talking, Barbara was already the butcher's wife.

"As I said, the woman no doubt told me all this, but I heard nothing and
stood motionless, till finally customers came, who pushed me aside. The
woman asked me gruffly whether there was anything else I wanted,
whereupon I took my departure.

"You'll believe me, my dear sir," he continued, "when I tell you that I
now considered myself the most wretched of mortals, but it wasn't for
long, for as I left the store and looked back at the small windows at
which Barbara no doubt had often stood and looked out, a blissful
sensation came over me. I felt that she was now free of all care,
mistress of her own home, that she did not have to bear the sorrow and
misery that would have been hers had she cast in her lot with a homeless
wanderer--and this thought acted like a soothing balm, and I blessed her
and her destiny.

"As my affairs went from bad to worse, I decided to earn my