Along the footpath between the hedges two men were now walking, one behind the other. The one in front was a little old man, whose dress showed him to be a person of property. He carried a cane in his hand, with the tasselled string twisted about his wrist by way of precaution. His step was still firm; his face, a perfect mass of wrinkles, moved up and down as he mumbled lumps of white sugar, which he produced from time to time from his pocket. His sandy eyebrows were brushed out till they stood almost at right angles with his face, and from under them peered a pair of shrewd, light blue eyes. The young man who walked behind was tall and slender, with crape on his hat and on the sleeve of his long blue coat. He kept his face turned to the ground, and shook his head sadly as he walked. At last he stopped, and straightened himself up, bringing to view a fresh face, with light beard and blue eyes, whose lids were red with weeping. "Uncle," he said, hoarsely. The sugar-eater turned round. "Uncle, you have gone far enough. Thank you heartily; but the way is long, and I would rather go home alone." "Why?" "I don't know why; but I feel it were better so." "No, no; turn back with me." "I am sorry not to oblige you, uncle; but I cannot,--I really cannot go to the inn just now. I am neither hungry nor thirsty; I don't know when I shall ever eat and drink again. It is a pity you should take this long walk for me." "No, no; I will go home with you. I am not so hard-hearted as your mother tried to make you believe." "My mother tried to make me believe no evil of you. She spoke nothing but good of any one, and especially against her relations she would hear no tales. 'To speak evil of a brother is to slander yourself,' she used to say." "Yes, yes; she had plenty of proverbs. 'Marie Lenz used to say so and so,' is in every one's mouth. Nothing but good should be spoken of the dead, and in fact there can no evil be said of her." The young man cast a sad glance at his uncle. He always managed to put a sting even into his kindliest words. "How often she has said to me lately," continued the young man, "and how it pained me to hear her, 'Lenz, I have lived six years too long for you. You ought to have married at five-and-twenty; it will come harder now. You have grown too much used to my ways, and they cannot last.' I could not persuade her out of the idea. It imbittered her death-bed." "She was right," said the sugar-eater. "She was too good-natured; self-willed she was also, but that was no matter. Her good-nature spoiled you. I did not mean to tell you so now, though; another time would be better. Come, do as I bid you, and don't be such a baby. You act as if you did not know which way to turn. It is all in the course of nature that your mother should die before you, and you have nothing to reproach yourself with in your treatment of her." "No, thank God!"