Yes, they were coming. Alick von Rambow and his fair young wife were driving slowly towards their home on that lovely summer-morning. They were in an open carriage, and Alick pointed beyond Gürlitz to the wide green meadows bathed in sunshine and to the shady woods of Pümpelhagen, and said: "Look, dearest Frida, there it is; that is our home."--These words were few and simple, but they did as well as any others to express the pride and happiness he felt in being able to provide such a beautiful home for his young wife, and she understood his meaning perfectly, and rejoiced in feeling how much he loved her.--She was of a calm gentle nature, and might be likened to a quiet brook flowing peacefully by the hill-side and through a cool shady wood far removed from the busy high-way; but now the bright sunshine had found out its secret course, and shone down upon it, lighting up the flowers and grasses on its banks, and showing the brilliant colouring of the pebbles lying under its still waters like treasures before undreamed of. And so the little brook flowed on, making a sweeter and merrier music than before it had been wakened to new life by the magic wand of the sun. Her appearance was much as Christian Däsel had described it, but he had not seen her cheeks flush with pleasant excitement as they were now doing, while she looked in the direction in which Alick was pointing; nor had he seen her grey eyes swimming with happy tears as she turned them on her husband. "Ah!" she exclaimed, slipping her hand into Alick's: "How beautiful it is! I never saw such a rich land! Just look at those corn-fields over there!"--"Yes," said Alick, who was much pleased with her delight, "the soil here is a great deal richer than in your province." It was a pity that he did not stop there, but she had alluded to his pet hobby, farming, so he went on: "But there is much room for improvement in our farming operations; sufficient intelligence has never yet been brought to bear on the subject, and so we don't make half as much out of the land as we might. Look there at that wheat-field on the other side of the hill! It is part of the Pümpelhagen estate, and I hope, in a couple of years' time, to have a crop of plants of great mercantile value in that field, and then you'll see that it will bring me in three times as much money as it does now."--Then he launched forth on the commercial value of flax, hops, oil producing plants, carraway and anise-seed, with which, in alternate years, he, as a good farmer, would sow clover and esparcet, "to keep his cattle in good condition, and to make manure." After that he went on to explain what plants were used for dyes, and told his wife that red was extracted from the madder, blue from woad and yellow from weld, and said that he was certain to get a good price for crops of that kind. Just as he had reached this point and was riding his hobby much to his own satisfaction, he was startled