with me, brother; it breaks
my heart."

A sudden revulsion of shame for his unjust suspicion filled John with
tenderness.

"Mein Schwester," he said fondly,--they had always the habit of using
the German tongue for fond epithets,--"mein Schwester klein, I love you
so much I cannot help being wretched when I see you in danger, but I am
not angry."

Nestling herself close by his side, Carlen looked over into the water.

"This is the very rock I fell off of that day, do you remember?" she
said; "and how wet you got fishing me out! And oh, what an awful beating
father gave you! and I always thought it was wicked, for if you had not
pulled me out I should have drowned."

"It was for letting you fall in he beat me," laughed John; and they
both grew tender and merry, recalling the babyhood times.

"How long, long ago!" cried Carlen.

"It seems only a day," said John.

"I think time goes faster for a man than for a woman," sighed Carlen.
"It is a shorter day in the fields than in the house."

"Are you not content, my sister?" said John.

Carlen was silent.

"You have always seemed so," he said reproachfully.

"It is always the same, John," she murmured. "Each day like every other
day. I would like it to be some days different."

John sighed. He knew of what this new unrest was born. He longed to
begin to speak of Wilhelm, and yet he knew not how. Now that, after
longer reflection, he had become sure in his own mind that Wilhelm cared
nothing for his sister, he felt an instinctive shrinking from
recognizing to himself, or letting it be recognized between them, that
she unwooed had learned to love. His heart ached with dread of the
suffering which might be in store for her.

Carlen herself cut the gordian knot.

"Brother," she whispered, "why do you think Wilhelm is not good?"

"I said not that, Carlen," he replied evasively. "I only say we know
nothing; and it is dangerous to trust where one knows nothing."

"It would not be trust if we knew," answered the loyal girl. "I believe
he is good; but, John, John, what misery in his eyes! Saw you ever
anything like it?"

"No," he replied; "never. Has he never told you anything about himself,
Carlen?"

"Once," she answered, "I took courage to ask him if he had relatives in
Germany; and he said no; and I exclaimed then, 'What, all dead!' 'All
dead,' he answered, in such a voice I hardly dared speak again, but I
did. I said: 'Well, one might have the terrible sor