"It was not Pilgrim. Why will you try to find any one now to hate? A hundred times I have heard my mother say, 'We can have no peace of mind if we do not feel kindly towards our fellow-men.' If she had but lived a year longer, that you might have learned of her! Was not that a good saying? You know how it is if you hate any one, or know you have an enemy. I experienced it once, and remember how hard it was. Wherever you go, or whatever you do, you feel an invisible pistol pointed at you. My greatest happiness is, that there is no one in the world whom I hate, and no one, so far as I know, who hates me." Annele had but half heard him. "Who could have said so if it were not Pilgrim?" "No one. I have only feared so sometimes myself." "I don't believe that. Some one put it into your head. But you ought not to have repeated it to me. I might tell what persons have said to me about you,--persons you would never suspect of speaking so. You have your enemies, like the rest of us, but I know better than to make you uncomfortable by repeating their stupid talk." "You only say that to pay me back. It is all fair; I have deserved it. But now we are quits, and let us be merry." The two were, indeed, full of happiness again. Franzl in the kitchen often moved her lips, as she was wont to do when thinking to herself. That is natural and right; thank God they feel so. Such would have been my life with Anton, if he had not proved faithless, and married a black woman! On Sunday morning Lenz said, "I had quite forgotten to tell you that I had invited a guest to dinner with us today. You have no objection?" "No; who is it?" "My good Pilgrim." "You should have invited your uncle too; it would be no more than proper." "I thought of it, but did not venture to, he is such a queer man." For the first time they heard the bells in the valley ringing. "Is that not beautiful?" said Lenz. "I have heard my mother say, a thousand times, that we did not hear the bells themselves, but only their echo from the wood behind the house, so that it is like hearing bells from heaven." "Yes; but we had better be starting now," returned Annele. On the way she began: "Lenz, I do not ask from curiosity; I am your wife, and have a right to know. I swear by those bells not to repeat it." "You need never swear; I have a horror of oaths. Tell me what it is you want to know." "You and your uncle seemed to understand each other perfectly on the day of the wedding; what has been settled about the inheritance?" "Nothing; we have never exchanged a word on the subject." "And yet you acted as if all were signed and sealed." "I did nothing. I only said my uncle and I understood each other, and so we do. We never speak of such things. He is free to do as he will." "He was pushed into a corner, that day, that he could not have got out of but for you. Such a chance will hardly occur again. He might have been made to leave us a handsome legacy."