“It would be nice,” he said to himself, “if I could play all sorts of sweet melodies and think of Elsbeth all the while; I could then once more pour out my heart to her, and feel that I, too, was something in the world. But, then, _am_ I in the world for myself alone?” he asked himself, absently laying hold of one of the crooked handles. “As this crooked handle turns and turns without knowing why, and in itself is nothing but a piece of dead iron, so I, too, must turn and turn, and not ask ‘Why!’ There are said to be people in the world who have the right to live for themselves, and to mould the world according to their own wishes. But they are differently constituted from me; they are handsome and proud and daring, and the sun always shines upon them. They may even allow themselves the privilege of possessing a heart and acting according to its dictates. But I! Oh, good God!” He paused, and sadly contemplated the flute, the keys of which dimly shone in the dusk. “If I were such a one,” he continued, after a while, “I should have become a celebrated musician. I know very well there are many melodies in my brain which no one else has ever whistled; and when I had attained my end I should have married Elsbeth--and father would have been rich, and mother happy; but now mother is dead--father is a poor cripple--Elsbeth will take another--and I stand here looking at the flute and can’t play on it.” He laughed out loud, and then slid to the front, so that he could reach the chimney. He stroked it, and said, “But I will learn to play _this_ flute that it’ll be a pleasure to hear.” As he sat there he fancied he heard subdued tittering and whispering in the garden. He listened; there was no doubt of it. A pair of lovers were cooing, or, perhaps, more than one pair, for divers voices were intermingled, like the twittering of a number of sparrows. “The maids keep sweethearts, it seems to me,” he said; “I’ll show them the way out.” He fetched a whip, which was hanging on the stable door, and climbed over the farthest part of the garden fence to waylay the intruders. Then suddenly he stopped short as if turned to stone, his eyes starting out of his head, and the whip trembling in his hand. He had distinguished his sisters’ voices. He leaned against the trunk of a tree and listened. “Does he leave you in peace now?” one of the lovers asked, in a whisper. “He has too much to do with his machine just now,” Greta’s voice replied; “even his unpalatable sermons he spares us.” “You have never heeded them, anyhow!” Greta giggled. “In spite of all his dignity he is only a stupid boy, and he understands nothing about love; as long as I can remember he has hung about Elsbeth Douglas; but do you suppose he has ever once dared raise his eyes to her? She, of course, would not dream of taking such a languishing idiot. There is her cousin Leo--he is quite another fellow.” His heart threatened to stop beating, but he went on listening.