l as soon as possible. Then 'Lizebeth stepped out vigorously and
arrived at home in such good spirits that the parson's wife resolved to
send her often to Marianne on a visit.

When Marianne on her return came near her cottage, she heard lovely
singing; she well knew the song. Every evening at twilight the stranger
sat down at the piano and sang, and she sang so beautifully and with a
voice that came from such depths that it touched Marianne's heart so
that she could not tear herself away when she heard the song, until it
was ended. But there was one song in particular which Marianne loved to
hear and which the woman sang every day, either at the beginning or the
end of her songs. It always seemed as if a great joy came into her voice
and as if she wanted to make this joy appeal to all who listened. And
yet this song touched Marianne's heart so deeply that she wept every
time she heard it. So it happened this evening. There was a log lying
before the house-door which served her for a resting-place when, in the
evening, she wanted to get a little fresh air. She rolled it under the
window so that she might look for a moment into the room. There sat the
lady, and her large blue eyes looked up to the evening sky so seriously
and sorrowfully, and yet there was something which sounded again like a
great joy in the beautiful song she was singing. The little boy sat on a
footstool beside her and looked at his mother with his joyful, bright
eyes, and listened to the singing.

Marianne could not look long. A strange feeling came over her, and she
stepped down from the log, put her apron to her eyes and wept and wept,
until the singing had died away.

CHAPTER IV

The Same Night in Two Houses

When on this evening Edi and Ritz were lying in their bed and Mother had
finished saying evening prayer with them and had closed the door after
her, Edi began: "Have you noticed, Ritz, that Father is almost like God?
He already knows the thing before one has told half of it."

"No, I have never noticed that," Ritz replied. "But it is all right, for
then he can do everything he wants to and also make fine weather."

"Oh, Ritz, you only look at the profit! but just look at the other
side." Here Edi rose up in bed from pure zeal and continued: "Do you
remember, not long ago I recited our songs, which we made about the
others, to Papa; then he knew at once that we were preparing a big fight
and has forbidden us to take part in it. An