of these feelings, she climbed up to the summer-house
with Ottilie and the child, and as she laid the latter down on the
little table, as on the altar of her house, and saw the two seats still
vacant, she thought of gone-by times, and fresh hopes rose out before
her for herself and for Ottilie.

Young ladies, perhaps, look timidly round them at this or that young
man, carrying on a silent examination, whether they would like to have
him for a husband; but whoever has a daughter or a female ward to care
for, takes a wider circle in her survey. And so it fared at this moment
with Charlotte, to whom, as she thought of how they had once sat side by
side in that summer-house, a union did not seem impossible between the
Captain and Ottilie. It had not remained unknown to her, that the plans
for the advantageous marriage, which had been proposed to the Captain,
had come to nothing.

Charlotte went on up the cliff, and Ottilie carried the child. A number
of reflections crowded upon the former. Even on the firm land there are
frequent enough ship-wrecks, and the true, wise conduct is to recover
ourselves, and refit our vessel at fast as possible. Is life to be
calculated only by its gains and losses? Who has not made arrangement
on arrangement, and has not seen them broken in pieces? How often does
not a man strike into a road and lose it again! How often are we not
turned aside from one point which we had sharply before our eye, but
only to reach some higher stage. The traveler, to his greatest
annoyance, breaks a wheel upon his journey, and through this unpleasant
accident makes some charming acquaintance, and forms some new
connection, which has an influence on all his life. Destiny grants us
our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our
wishes.

Among these and similar reflections they reached the new building on the
hill, where they intended to establish themselves for the summer. The
view all round them was far more beautiful than could have been
supposed; every little obstruction had been removed; all the loveliness
of the landscape, whatever nature, whatever the season of the year had
done for it, came out in its beauty before the eye; and already the
young plantations, which had been made to fill up a few openings, were
beginning to look green, and to form an agreeable connecting link
between parts which before stood separate.

The house itself was nearly habitable; the views, particularly