Hawermann and Frank had gone to church at Gürlitz that morning. The farmer walked on silently, his heart full of love and gratitude to God for all His fatherly goodness to him and to his child who was to be confirmed on that Palm Sunday morning. As he went down the dry foot-path--there had been a slight frost during the night--his eyes rested on the bright scene before him, the snow was still lying in white patches beside the ditches, and under the shade of the dark pines, while the rye-fields with their tender green carpet on which the sun poured down its golden light, announced that Easter was nigh, and quietly awaited the promised resurrection. The smoke rising from the chimneys of the small villages round about was gilded by the sun's rays, showing how little the aspect of nature is affected by the cares and troubles of man, and from the church-towers on every hand was to be heard a solemn peal ringing over woods and meadows.--"Ah, if she had only lived to see this day!" said the old man aloud, forgetting that he was not alone.--"Who?" asked Frank with some hesitation, and fearing lest he might be thought intrusive.--"My poor wife, the mother of my dear child," the old man answered softly, as he turned his honest face and looked kindly at the youth at his side, as much as to say: My face and my heart tell the same tale, as you would know if you could only read my thoughts.--"Yes," he went on, "my good wife. But what am I saying? She sees our child better than I can, she does more for her than I can, and her thoughts are higher than the blue heavens, and her joy purer than the golden sunlight."--Frank walked on in silence not wishing to disturb the bailiff; he had never before felt such a deep reverence for his dear old friend, and now as he looked at him, and saw his white hair lying on his broad forehead as white and pure as those patches of snow on the ground, and read in his expression a full assurance of hope, and a calm faith in the resurrection, such as was also to be seen in the face of nature, for while his countenance was irradiated with the sunshine of love, the earth was bathed in that of the golden sun. At last he could resist the impulse no longer, and seized the old man's hand, saying: "Hawermann, dear Hawermann, you must have had a great deal of sorrow during your life."--"Not more," was the answer, "than other people have, but enough for me to remember as long as I live."--"Will you tell me about it? It is not curiosity that makes me ask."--"Why not?" he said, and then he told him his whole story, but without once mentioning Pomuchelskopp's name; "and," he said in conclusion, "as my child was once my only comfort, she is now my only joy."