Many a more gorgeous epergne has not yielded one hundredth part of the delight. Every eye was fixed upon it; some in pure astonishment and wonder, others speculating what might fall to their share; and while the old grandfather tried to curb impatience among the elder children, the young baby, with the destructive privilege that belongs to infancy, was permitted to pull and tear from time to time at the glittering fruit,--little feats which excited as much laughter from the grown people as anxiety from the younger. Hans moved on, with a sigh, at these new signs of home happiness in which he had no share. The next was the Curate’s cabin, and there sat a pleasant party round the stove, while the old priest read something from an amusing volume; the lecture never proceeding far without some interruption to comment upon it, to indulge a laugh, or mayhap clink their glasses together, as, in token of friendship, they pledged each other health and long life. Beyond this again was a new cabin, just taken possession of; and here Hans, peeping in, beheld a young Tyroler exhibiting to his wife--(they had been married but a few weeks)--his new rifle. It was strange to see how she admired the weapon, gazing at it with all the delight most of her sex reserve for some article of dress or decoration. She balanced it, too, in her hand, and held it to her shoulder, with the ease of one accustomed to its use. In every cabin some group, some home picture, met his eye; peaceful age, happy manhood, delighted childhood, beamed around each hearth and board. The song, the dance, the merry story, the joyous meal, succeeded each other, as he went along. He alone, of all, was poor and sad: in his mother’s hut all was darkness and gloom; the half-suppressed sigh of pain the only sound. The last cabin of the village, and the poorest too, belonged to an old peasant, who had been a soldier under the Emperor Joseph; he was a very old man, and being burdened with a large family of grandchildren, whose parents were both dead, all he could do by hard labour was to maintain his household, “Here,” thought Hans, as he stopped to look in, “here are some poor as ourselves,--I hope they are happier.” So they seemed to be. They were all seated on the floor of the cabin, with the grandfather among them on a low stool, while he performed for them the evolutions of the Grand Army at Presburg--the great review which Maria Theresa held of all the Imperial troops. The old man was sorely puzzled to convey a sufficiently formidable notion of the force, for he had only some twenty little wooden soldiers to fill up the different arms of the service, and was obliged to plant individuals to represent entire corps, while walnut-shells answered for field-pieces and mortars; the citadel of Presburg being performed by the bowl of hit Meerschaum pipe.