Lenz, however, found that active employment produced calmness and composure, and he did not leave off till evening, when he went down into the valley, past the scattered houses, to his friend the painter, Pilgrim; but half way he turned round suddenly, as if he had heard some one calling him, and yet all was still around. No sound was heard but the waterwagtail--called by the country people here _Hockenock_--twittering incessantly in the reeds, and the yellow hammer, perched on the young green shoots, on the top of the fir trees, whistling its solitary note, and glancing round with its bright eyes. There are no larks here, either in the valley or in the meadows beyond; they only soar on the high land above, where cornfields are cultivated. Mists were rising in the meadows, but these thin vapours are only visible in front and behind, and never in the small space which a person occupies standing, or walking. Lenz went quickly along the valley, and did not stop till the sun had gone down behind the mountains, and then he said: "It is setting for the first time over her grave." The evening bell rung out; he took off his hat and proceeded on his way. He paused at a bend in the valley, and, concealed by a bush, looked up at a solitary cottage. On a bench before the door was seated a man with whom we are already acquainted--the clockmaker, Faller. He had a child on his knee, whom he was playing with, and his sister was seated behind him, whose husband had gone to foreign parts. She was nursing an infant, and fondly kissing its little hands. "Good evening, Faller;" said Lenz in his usual clear tenor voice. "Oh! is that really you?" replied a bass voice; "we were just speaking of you; Lisbeth said you would forget us in your grief, and I said, on the contrary, it is the very thing that would make him think of us." "You are right, I come to you for that very reason; I remembered that Hurgel's house is to be sold to-morrow, I will be your security if you choose to buy it. You will then also be nearer me." "Capital! famous! so you are going to stay where you are?" "Why not?" "People said that you were going to travel now, for a year or more." "Who said so?" "I think it was your uncle; but I am not quite sure." "Really: well perhaps I may; if I go away, you must live in my house." "You had far better stay at home, it is too late to travel----" "And marry soon," added the young wife. "Yes; for then all taste for travelling is at an end--a married man has too many links at home. There is no doubt you will prosper, Lenz, for thinking of me in all your sorrow; your mother in heaven will bless you for it; no single minute passes without my thinking of her; in all things her first thought was for others, and you take after her--God will bless you."