nuity. Now it is evident why he was so
hard and tough. And it is also come out that his capital, that he had
scraped together in so many different parts of the world, all went at
the gambling table. Yes; there is no doubt that gamblers are often at
the same time the stupidest, as well as the cleverest men. The Doctor
said so, and what he says is always sure to come true. Won't you stay
here till tomorrow? The Doctor's old mother is to be buried then--the
very last of the old generation. She was not quite seventy-eight. My
Lenz said, when his uncle died, 'I am rather glad that I don't get
anything from him--I shall now help myself, and trust to no one else.'
He intends to take his own son Wilhelm, and young Faller, as
apprentices; but he says they must first leave home and travel."

"And are they good and kind to you?" asked Kathrine, merely to say
something.

"Good Heavens! kind!--they are only too kind. I don't know what use I
am of, that they pretend they could not be happy without me. It is only
a sad pity that I can't help getting old; but my grandmother was
eighty-three when she died, and I dare say she was in reality
ninety-three, for all old people make great mistakes about their age,
never having learnt either to read or to write. I may live to be as
old. I eat and drink well, and sleep like a top. All prospers in our
house. And see! the wood is beginning to grow famously, and it now
belongs to us; and as surely as the wood is now growing as fast as it
can, where God has placed it, and thrives just as it ought, so surely
is everything in our house increasing and prospering. These are fine
shady young trees, are they not? I hope to live to see them large
timber."

Kathrine had not time to wait for that; and when she was on her way
home with the twins, escorted part of the way by Lenz, and Annele, and
Faller's widow, Franzl called out to her from the kitchen--"Kathrine,
be prepared to stand godmother to our next."

* * * * *

This is the story of Lenz and Annele of the Morgenhalde; and now we
know why the young mother has white hair, and why, at the moment of
parting with her son, she begs him to bring her home a plant of
Edelweiss.

When Lenz came home, he found a garland of fresh flowers hung over the
picture of his mother. He nodded gratefully to Annele. She had always
thus cherished the memory of this day. It was now eighteen years since
his mother had been buried