Kathrine heard this good report with sincere pleasure. Franzl, however, was like a wound-up piece of clockwork. She continued:--"And did you hear what we inherited from Petrowitsch? Nothing but his dog, who will neither eat a morsel of potato, nor a bit of bread: he should soon learn to do so, I can tell him; but my Lenz is far too good to the dog, and says he saved little Marie's life. So not one kreuzer did we inherit from our rich uncle. The Doctor, it seems, said so long ago. He was in some Sickly Insurance, I think they call it, or some such name, and had nothing but a good annuity. Now it is evident why he was so hard and tough. And it is also come out that his capital, that he had scraped together in so many different parts of the world, all went at the gambling table. Yes; there is no doubt that gamblers are often at the same time the stupidest, as well as the cleverest men. The Doctor said so, and what he says is always sure to come true. Won't you stay here till tomorrow? The Doctor's old mother is to be buried then--the very last of the old generation. She was not quite seventy-eight. My Lenz said, when his uncle died, 'I am rather glad that I don't get anything from him--I shall now help myself, and trust to no one else.' He intends to take his own son Wilhelm, and young Faller, as apprentices; but he says they must first leave home and travel." "And are they good and kind to you?" asked Kathrine, merely to say something. "Good Heavens! kind!--they are only too kind. I don't know what use I am of, that they pretend they could not be happy without me. It is only a sad pity that I can't help getting old; but my grandmother was eighty-three when she died, and I dare say she was in reality ninety-three, for all old people make great mistakes about their age, never having learnt either to read or to write. I may live to be as old. I eat and drink well, and sleep like a top. All prospers in our house. And see! the wood is beginning to grow famously, and it now belongs to us; and as surely as the wood is now growing as fast as it can, where God has placed it, and thrives just as it ought, so surely is everything in our house increasing and prospering. These are fine shady young trees, are they not? I hope to live to see them large timber." Kathrine had not time to wait for that; and when she was on her way home with the twins, escorted part of the way by Lenz, and Annele, and Faller's widow, Franzl called out to her from the kitchen--"Kathrine, be prepared to stand godmother to our next." * * * * * This is the story of Lenz and Annele of the Morgenhalde; and now we know why the young mother has white hair, and why, at the moment of parting with her son, she begs him to bring her home a plant of Edelweiss.