In the gallery are five persons: one an aged woman with white hair, and a grey countenance. Her face is expressive only of childish good-humour. It is Madame Berthier; she sits in this gallery every fine day, and looks at the lake and the mountains and laughs. She has lost her memory almost completely, every trace of her old bitterness is gone. On her lap is a little girl of three years old, dark-haired, black-eyed, the image of Gabrielle; and madame fondles her, plays with her, calls her Mädel, which is the short, we suppose, for Madeleine, and kisses her oftener than the child altogether likes. Gabrielle is there, a middle-aged woman, with a plain gold ring on the third finger of the left hand, spinning diligently. She is dressed like a Swiss peasantess, with white sleeves and a black bodice, her hair elaborately plaited behind and fastened with a silver spoon. Leaning against the balcony is Nicholas, grown rather stout, playing a flageolet to a little boy in a brown suit of very stiff cloth, jacket, waistcoat, breeches, all one colour, and all old-mannish, wearing a brown knitted cap on his head;--a little boy with very large dreamy blue eyes and a shock of light flaxen hair, his head thrust through a large rosary, like a necklace, holding his hands behind his back, and singing lustily with a clear sweet voice-- 'Heart, my heart, why art thou weary, Why to grief and tears a prey? Foreign lands are bright and cheery; Heart, my heart, what ails thee, say?' Coming along the path from Lucerne, with his long black shadow going before him, is an old man, very thin, wearing a long grey coat, with snow-white hair. He comes to the gate of the garden, halts there, looks up inquiringly at the gallery, sees the painting of Bruder Klaus, nods his head, as if acknowledging that this accords with directions that have been given him, opens the wicket and enters the garden. Nicholas at once, turning to his wife, says, 'Gabrielle, here comes a stranger. Who can he be?' Directly they hear the tap of the old man at their door, and both Nicholas and his wife run down stairs to answer it. The door is at once opened, and their eyes rest on the thin stranger. His face is wrinkled and worn, the cheeks sunk, the complexion pale, the eyes bright, restless, and intelligent. He raises his right hand, and Madame Nicholas at once observes its delicacy and the beauty of the fingers. The stranger does not speak, but looks attentively at Gabrielle, whilst a sad smile flickers about his thin lips. She raises her eyes to his, and all at once recognition flashes into them, her countenance lights up, and she falls into his arms with the cry of--'It is M. Lindet!' When the first greetings were over, Gabrielle's question was: 'How is everything now at Bernay, at dear old Bernay, which I shall never see again?' 'Do you want to see it?' 'I do not know; perhaps it would be too painful, and I am _so_ happy here.'