sing had been
pronounced upon their united lives. They went first to the little church
yard and knelt by the new made grave covered with flowers. With tearful
eyes, and with sad regrets in their happy hearts, they said,

"If she could only have lived to see us now!"

Today there is no more beautiful flower-garden in all Tannenegg, than that
about Dietrich's pretty white house. Within the house all is so fresh and
charming from top to bottom, that one who enters it finds it difficult to
get away again from its hospitable shelter.

Dietrich has built a fine large work-room; and there he sits and works,
industrious and happy, or he goes about his outside affairs in a steady
business-like manner. Often he has to go to Fohrensee and even farther;
for his trade is prosperous beyond competition and his work is recognized
far and wide as of unrivalled excellence.

On Veronica's face lies such a sunshine of constant happiness as is good
to look upon. She has given up her position in the school at Fohrensee;
her place is with her husband and children; but she does not for all that
sit with her hands in her lap; her orderly well-kept house, and her
blooming well-behaved children bear witness to her faultless management
as well as to her care and industry, and at the great annual Fair in the
city, if any one inquires about some wonderfully fine and beautiful
embroidery on exhibition, the answer invariably is, "that is the work of
Veronica of Tannenegg."

Blasi is Dietrich's permanent assistant. He is constantly about the house,
and is known in the family as Uncle Blasi. As soon as the day's work is
over, and the evening sets in, his first question is, "Where are our
children?" He never speaks of them in any other way; they are his, his joy
and pride. He has also a special claim upon them, for he and Cousin Judith
are the god-father and god-mother of both.

Blasi's favorite time is Sunday, when Dietrich goes to walk with his
wife, and gives over the house and the children to him. Then he sets upon
one knee the chubby little Dieterli and on the other the black eyed
Veronica, and they ride there as long as they please, no matter how high
the horse has to curvet and prance. And whatever else they want him to do
for them, he is ready to do, whatever it may be.

There is only one Sunday pleasure that outweighs the knee-riding with
Uncle Blasi, and that is when Veronica takes her little girl in her lap
and lets Dieterli press close