beth will come and look for me."

Of that Marianne was sure: 'Lizebeth would come and take him home. No
doubt Erick had started to come and see Marianne, his friend in Oakwood,
and on his way there had fallen into the Woodbach by accident, Marianne
thought, for in her anxiety for his welfare, she had not spoken a word
with Erick about the accident. Now he was fast asleep.

Marianne sat down beside him and lifted the cover now and then to listen
whether he was breathing properly. After she had sat thus a while and
noticed how the little fellow's cheeks began to glow like the reddest
strawberries, then she feared no longer that he would catch cold, and
she also felt sure that 'Lizebeth would not come and thought that the
people in the parsonage would assume that he was going to spend the
night at the cottage. So Marianne had peacefully locked her cottage and
gone to sleep.

The next morning Marianne first had to brush and press the velvet suit,
for she would not bring the boy back to the parsonage in disorder; she
would not have done that for the sake of his blessed mother. Then she
too must dress in her Sunday best, and so the morning had almost passed
before they both had started on their way, quite contented and without
any suspicion of the enormous fear and excitement which had been in the
parsonage and had spread over the whole of Upper Wood. At the church
they had been greeted by the assembled crowd with great noise and much
confused talking, and then they were accompanied to the parsonage by the
schoolmates, who were crazed with joy at seeing Erick.

In the general excitement and joy, the colonel had been quite forgotten.
He had sat down unnoticed on a chair, and had listened attentively to
the reports, following with his eyes the lively gestures which the
excited Erick was making in the zeal of telling his story. Now the
reports were finished and for the first time Erick's eyes beheld the
stranger in the crowd. The latter beckoned him to come to him; Erick
obeyed at once.

"Come here, my boy, hither," and the colonel placed him right before
him. "So, just look straight in my eyes. What is your name?"

Erick with his bright eyes looked directly into those of the strange
gentleman, and without hesitation he said: "Erick Dorn."

The gentleman looked at him still more directly. "After whom were you
called, boy, do you know?"

Erick hesitated a moment with the answer, but he did not divert his
glance. It seeme