ok at that!" said he. "How it shines and sparkles. You can hold
it all in two hands, and yet there's enough there to buy a farm, with
house and fields and forests, and cattle and tools and everything."

"That's a great deal of money," said the mother. She laid her hand on
the gold, while her lips moved silently.

"Put your hand into it," urged Hansei. "Oh, how good it feels to stir
about in the gold that way."

The grandmother did not comply with his wish, but kept murmuring to
herself.

The child in the next room cried, and Hansei called out:

"The freeholder's daughter's awake. Good morning, freeholder's
daughter!" said he, while the two women went out to the child. Then he
took up the bag of gold, shook it, and said:

"Just listen; you never heard such music before."

The grandmother lifted the child out of the bed and said: "Hansei, just
do as I tell you, and put the gold in the warm crib of the innocent
child. That'll bless it, and no matter whose hands the gold may have
been in, that consecrates it and brings a blessing with it."

"Yes, mother; we can do that." Turning to Walpurga, he added: "Mother
always has such pretty notions. You know it'll do the gold good in the
warm nest. Yes," said he to the little child, "they've put lots of gold
in your cradle. We'll take one piece and have a hole drilled through
it, and you shall get it when you become confirmed. Only keep good."

"But now I must go over to Grubersepp's," said he, at last.

Walpurga was obliged to tell that she had already been looking for him
there, that morning. She now realized how prone she was to give way to
exaggerated fears, and determined to break herself of the habit.

The grandmother, Walpurga and the child were happy together at home,
and the mother related that just three months before Walpurga was born,
she had been at the farm for the last time, and that was to attend her
brother's wedding.

"They can bury me up there," added she. "It's a pity I can't rest
beside your father, for the lake never gave him up again. Oh if he'd
only lived to see this!"

Our highest joys and our deepest sorrows are closely allied.

Grubersepp came back with Hansei, and was the first to congratulate
Walpurga and the grandmother. He advised them, however, to say nothing
of the matter until the purchase was legally consummated.

CHAPTER IX.

On Sunday, Hansei, Walpurga, and the mother, went to church togethe