And what changes had time made at the Parsonage? The cord had been very little pulled there. When Mr. Behrens felt a light touch on his arm when he was busy writing his sermon, and looked round to see what it was, it was only his little wife standing beside him, duster in hand, and while she gave his chair an extra rub, she asked him whether he would like the perch to be fried or boiled, and if he had just got in his sermon to S. Peter's draught of fishes, or to the great fish-dinner mentioned in the Gospel, so many tiresome unchristian thoughts of fried fish served with horseradish and butter _would_ disturb him, that he had hard work to keep his sermon and clerical dignity uninjured.--Once, a long time ago, I got a beautiful lily-root from my friend Jülke, the great gardener in Erfurt. Its leaves began to show in March, and the first thing I did every morning, was to go and see how much the leaves had grown during the night, and I watched it carefully to see when the flower-bud began to form. Long before there was any sign of the flower, when only green leaves were to be seen, I used to carry it from the cold window to the warm stove, and again from the dusty stove to the bright sunny window. And as with the plant, so with human life, there is to me great delight in watching and tending it as it grows.--The parson had also received a lily-root from the great Gardener, the Lord God of Heaven, and he and his little wife had loved it, and tended it, and now the flower was there--a human flower, which grew in the warm sun-light of loving hearts, and Mrs. Behrens went to look at her the first thing in the morning, buzzed round her at mid-day, rejoiced in her healthy appetite, and put another spoonful on her plate, for she said: food is necessary to life. In the evening under the lime-tree before the door, she drew the same shawl round herself and the little girl, that she might know the child was warm, and when it was time to go to bed she gave her a good-night kiss: "God bless you my darling, I'll call you to-morrow early, at five o'clock." And the parson's first act was to go to her; he watched the tender green leaves opening, propped his lily carefully, and taught her how to grow straight and true, and when she had gone to bed, he said with the implicit faith of a little child: "Regina, our lily will soon blossom now."