nt endeavour to
conceal the crime, were the severest punishment.

Eric had now a secret; was he to let it be possible for a servant to
betray him, and himself appear untrustworthy?

When Eric was about to go to rest, Roland came to him and asked whether
he had anything to impart to him.

Eric replied in the negative, and the boy appeared sad when he said
good-night.

CHAPTER X.

A NEW DAY AND DARK QUESTIONS.

The morning dew glistened on grass, flower, and shrub, and the birds
sang merrily, as Eric walked through the park. There was evidence
everywhere of an ordering, busy, and watchful mind.

Eric heard, on the bank of the river, two women talking with each
other, as they carried on shore the garden-earth out of a boat.

"God be praised," said one, "who has sent the man to us; no one in the
place who is willing to work need suffer poverty any more."

"Yes," spoke the other, "and yet there are people here who are so bad
as to say all sorts of things about the man."

"What do they say?"

"That he has been a tailor."

Eric could hardly restrain himself from laughing aloud. But a third
woman, with a rather thick voice, said,--

"A tailor indeed! He has been a pirate, and in Africa stole a
gold-ship."

"And supposing he did," said the other, "those man-eaters have heaps of
gold, and are heathens beside, and Herr Sonnenkamp does nothing but
good with his gold."

Eric could not help smiling at these strange tales and implications;
and it was also painful to him that great wealth always stirred up new
and calumnious reports.

He went on farther. He saw from a height, with satisfaction, how the
main building and all its dependencies, with park and garden, were
combined in a beautiful harmony. Near the main building there were only
trees of a dark foliage, lindens, elms, and maples, which brought out,
by contrast, so much the more brightly the brilliant architecture of
the house built in a good Renaissance style. The arbored walks
converged gradually, as if conducting to the solidly-built mansion,
which seemed not to be built upon the ground, but as if it had sprung
up from the soil with the scenery that surrounded it; the stone
colonnades, the lawns, the trees, the elevations, all were an
introduction to the house; all was in harmony. The verandas appeared to
be only bearers of the climbing plants, and the whole was a masterpiece
of rural architec