r, she did not hide from herself
to what a high position that child was born: far and wide, wherever the
eye could see, all would one day belong to him. How desirable, how
necessary it must therefore be, that it should grow up under the eyes of
its father and its mother, and renew and strengthen the union between
them!

Ottilie saw all this so clearly that she represented it to herself as
conclusively decided, and for herself, as concerned with it, she never
felt at all. Under this fair heaven, by this bright sunshine, at once it
became clear to her, that her love if it would perfect itself, must
become altogether unselfish; and there were many moments in which she
believed it was an elevation which she had already attained. She only
desired the well-being of her friend. She fancied herself able to resign
him, and never to see him any more, if she could only know that he was
happy. The one only determination which she formed for herself was never
to belong to another.

They had taken care that the autumn should be no less brilliant than the
spring. Sun-flowers were there, and all the other plants which are never
tired of blossoming in autumn, and continue boldly on into the cold;
asters especially were sown in the greatest abundance, and scattered
about in all directions to form a starry heaven upon the earth.

FROM OTTILIE'S DIARY

"Any good thought which we have read, anything striking which we have
heard, we commonly enter in our diary; but if we would take the trouble,
at the same time, to copy out of our friends' letters the remarkable
observations, the original ideas, the hasty words so pregnant in
meaning, which we might find in them, we should then be rich indeed. We
lay aside letters never to read them again, and at last we destroy them
out of discretion, and so disappears the most beautiful, the most
immediate breath of life, irrecoverably for ourselves and for others. I
intend to make amends in future for such neglect."

"So, then, once more the old story of the year is being repeated over
again. We are come now, thank God, again to its most charming chapter.
The violets and the may-flowers are as its superscriptions and its
vignettes. It always makes a pleasant impression on us when we open
again at these pages in the book of life."

"We find fault with the poor, particularly with the little ones among
them, when they loiter about the streets and beg. Do we not observe that
they begin to work again, a