Something short of forty years ago, there came to dwell at the Kletscher a poor widow with one child, a boy of about nine years old. She never told much of her history to the neighbours, and merely accounted for her choice of this secluded spot from the circumstance that she had known it when a child, her grandfather having been many years an inhabitant of the “Dorf;” and that, from dwelling on the pleasant days she had known there once, and talking over them so often with her little Hans, she at last determined to gratify him and herself by revisiting the cherished spot, hoping to end her days there in peace. The grandfather of whom she spoke--long since dead--had been well known and respected in the village; so that, at first on his account, and subsequently on her own, the widow was welcomed kindly amongst them. Her subsistence was derived principally from a small pension she received from the Government, for her husband had been a grenadier of the Austrian Imperial Guard, and fell on the field of Austerlitz. This little pittance would not have sufficed for wants even humble as hers, without the aid of her own industry; but she was clever at her needle, and could accomplish many a triumph in millinery above village skill; and by the exertion of this art she contrived to eke out a subsistence--in poverty, it is true, but in contentment also. If little Hans Jörgle could not contribute to the common stock by any efforts of his labour, his gentle, quiet nature, his guileless innocence, won for him the love of all the village. Old and young were pleased to see him, and to talk to him; for, child as he was, Hans had read a great many books, and could tell the most wonderful stories about the Swedes in the Thirty Years’ War, and also what happened in the long wars between Frederic of Prussia and the Austrians--stories that, if Hans were fond of telling, his audience were far more delighted to listen to. This amusing gift, joined to the claims of infirmity--for he was lame, the effect of a fall in his infancy--made him a favourite with every one; for even they--and the number was a small one--who could not relish his stores of narrative could feel compassion for the little fatherless boy, bereft of the means of earning a livelihood, and wholly dependent on one whose frail health gave little promise of long life.