am which shines day by day into the
house is the best image of its state; it is that which chases hence all
darkness, and turns all shadows into the glorification of its light!

"I will now, lively Ida, talk to you some little about the daughters of
the house, and in order that you may not find my picture too
sentimental, I will introduce first to you--'Honour to whom honour is
due!'--

'OUR ELDEST,'

well known for industry, morality, moral lecturing, cathedral airs, and
many good properties. She married eleven years ago upon a much smaller
than common capital of worldly wealth; but both she and her husband knew
how to turn their pound to account, and so, by degrees, their house,
under her careful hands, came to be what people call a well-to-do house.

"Eight wild Jacobis during this time sprung up in the house without
bringing about any revolution in it, so good were the morals which they
drew in with the mother's milk. I call them the 'Berserkers,' because
when I last saw them they were perfect little monsters of strength and
swiftness, and because we shall rely upon their prowess to overturn
certain planks--of which more anon; on which account I will inspire them
and their mother beforehand with a certain old-gothic ambition.

"So now! After the married couple had kept school eleven years--he
instructing the boys in history, Latin, and such like; and she washing,
combing, and moralising the same, and in fact, becoming a mother to many
a motherless boy, it pleased the mercy of the Almighty to call them--not
directly to heaven, but through his angel the Consistorium to the
pastoral care of the rural parish adjoining this town--the highest goal
of their wishes ever since they began to have wishes one with another.
Their approaching journey here has given rise to great pleasure--it is
hard to say in which of the two families the greatest. Thus, then,
Louise will become a pastor's wife--perhaps soon also an archdeacon's,
and then she arrives at the desired situation in which she can impart
moral lectures with power--of which sister Petrea might have the benefit
of a good part, and pay it back with interest.

"But the moral lectures of our eldest have a much milder spirit than
formerly, which is owing to the influence of Jacobi; for it has occurred
in their case, as in the case of many another happily-married couple,
they have ennobled one another; and it is a common saying in our family,
that she without him wo