d a little plot of their own that showed golden too. The
dimensions of things had shrunk not a little for these two. A bushel
of corn was much to them now. It hit them hard if their potato-patch
yielded a couple of measures less than they had reckoned on. But the
housewives from the farms near by would often look in on Merle to see
how bright and clean she kept her little house; and now that she had
no one to help her, she found time herself to teach the peasant girls
something of cooking and sewing.

But one habit had grown upon her. She would stand long and long by the
window looking down the valley to where the hills closed it in. It
was as if she were looking constantly for something to come in sight,
something that should bring them better days. It was a kind of Sunday
for her to stand there and look and wait.

And the time went on.

Chapter VII

DEAR KLAUS BROCK,

I write to tell you of what has lately happened to us here, chiefly in
the hope that it may be some comfort to yourself. For I have discovered,
dear friend, that this world-sorrow of ours is something a man can get
over, if only he will learn to see with his own eyes and not with those
of others.

Most men would say things have steadily gone from bad to worse with
me, and certainly I shall not pretend to feel any love for suffering
in itself. On the contrary, it hurts. It does not ennoble. It rather
brutalises, unless it becomes so great that it embraces all things. I
was once Engineer in charge at the First Cataract--now I am a blacksmith
in a country parish. And that hurts. I am cut off from reading because
of my eyes, and from intercourse with people whose society would be a
pleasure because there are no such people here. All this hurts, even
when you've grown used to it--a good thing in itself it is not. Many
times I have thought that we must have reached the very bottom of the
inclined plane of adversity, but always it proved to be only a break.
The deepest deep was still to come. You work on even when your head
feels like to split; you save up every pin, every match; and yet the
bread you eat often tastes of charity. That hurts. You give up hoping
that things may be better some day; you give up all hope, all dreams,
all faith, all illusions--surely you have come to the end of all things.
But no; the very roots of one's being are still left; the most precious
thing of all is still left. What can that be, you ask?

That is what I was g