t thou not, dearest?"

"What dost thou mean, Marie? Am I never to write anything but hymns?"

"No, no, I do not mean that," she said. "I am very ignorant and cannot
rightly explain it to thee, little brother. But genius is a great and
perilous gift; and, oh, Friedrich! Friedrich! promise me just
this:--that thou wilt never, never write anything against the faith or
the teaching of the Saviour, and that thou wilt never use the graces
of poetry to cover the hideousness of any of those sins which it is
the work of a lifetime to see justly, and to fight against manfully.
Promise me just this."

"Oh, Marie! to think that I could be so wicked!"

"No! no!" she said, covering him with kisses. "I know thou wilt be
good and great, and we shall all be proud of our little brother.
GOD give thee the pen of a ready writer, and grace to use it
to His glory!"

"I will," he said, "GOD help me! and I will write beautiful
hymns for thee, Marie, that when I am dead shall be sung in the
churches. They shall be like that Evening Hymn we sing so often. Sing
it now, my sister!"

Marie cleared her throat, and in a low voice, that steadied and grew
louder and sweeter till it filled the house and died away among the
rafters, sang the beautiful hymn that begins--

"Herr, Dein Auge geht nicht unter, wenn es bei uns Abend wird;"
(Lord! Thine eye does not go down, when it is evening with us.)

The boy lay drinking it in with that full enjoyment of simple vocal
music which is so innate in the German character; and as he lay, he
hummed his accustomed part in it, and the mother at work below caught
up the song involuntarily, and sang at her work; and Marie's clear
voice breaking through the wooden walls of the house, was heard by a
passer in the street, who struck in with the bass of the familiar
hymn, and went his way. Before it was ended, Friedrich was sleeping
peacefully once more.

But Marie sat by the stove till the watchman in the quaint old street
told the hour of midnight, when (with the childish custom taught her
by the old schoolmaster long ago) she folded her hands, and murmured,

"Nisi Dominus urbem custodiat, frustra vigilat custos."
(Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but
in vain.)

And then she slept also.

The snow fell softly on the roof, and on the walls of the old church
outside, and on the pavement of the street of the poet's native town,
and the night passed and the day came.

Th