him! Caspar, his fellow-workman, fell from a scaffold, and broke his leg. Caspar, too, had a wife and children: Johan undertook his work--he worked double hours, and divided his wages with Caspar. Karl revealed to him in confidence over his pipe at the "Gold Apfel," that he was in debt, and had been threatened with a jail: Johan lent him the money unknown to Gertrude, and worked hard to make it up; as he knew Karl could never pay him. He had now no time to work at the angel; and time was going on with him. By his little broken looking-glass he could see his beard growing gray; but strange to say, the angel, though less distinct in form than when he saw it, was still firmly fixed in his memory; and though it seemed to be etherialized, he could always call up its image before him; and still, every moment he could spare, did he hasten to his garret, and cut away at the rough stone. But these hours were stolen from his natural rest, and nature punished the theft; his strength visibly declined. Yet he could not abandon his work--and this not from any ambitious ideas of its success, for he never dreamed of succeeding--he felt his own inability too much to hope for it;--but there was something in the exercise of will, mind, and heart--something which seemed to elevate him in spite of himself, while at his employment, that balanced all other feelings of disappointment and weariness, making him a happier--no, that is not the word, but a nobler--man. And now Johan Schmit had contrived to apprentice his eldest son, send his second to school, pay the doctor's long bill for two children, and bury another; besides having helped Caspar during his illness, and paid Karl's debt. Thrifty Gertrude managed to keep things together; and in her cleaning and bustling had no time to observe the wan face and wasted frame of her husband. The stone had been gradually cut into a form which was nearly as shapeless as before Johan touched it; and yet, to his eyes, it did bear some rude resemblance to the angel of his inspiration--which appeared before his eyes so vividly as he returned from an unusually-long and hard day's work to his home, that he thought he could just put one or two finishing strokes before going to bed which would recall his dimly-remembered model. Without touching supper or pipe, he embraced his wife and children, and went to his garret. He looked long on the rude block before him, and then took up his hammer and chisel to complete his work. After two or three attempts, an unwonted languor stole over him; the tools dropped from his hands, and he worked no more; but the vision of the angel before his eyes grew stronger and stronger, and of something brighter and more glorious than the angel, but he did not attempt to carve it.