"When I was nine years old we became motherless orphans, and matters went ill with us; for our father dwelt at a farm five miles from our property, and brought the widow of a school-master into the house to take care of us. She had her own children to help on, and spent upon them what should have been ours, leaving us in want, so that we often gladly took what others would not have. It happened too through her artifices that she left us alone in the house in the evening. Then came certain people, dressed in white shirts, and their faces rubbed with honey and sprinkled with flour; they went about the house with lights, broke open chests and coffers, and took from out of them what they wished. This gave us such a fright that we huddled together behind the stove, and perspired with fear. This went on till the whole house was emptied. As our father was very severe with us, we had not the heart to complain, but were only glad when he left us; so we bore with this annoyance till von Praunheim, who is now married to my sister, visited us,--he was then very young. To him we complained of our distress, and he undertook to remain concealed in the house till evening, to see whether the spirits would come again. When they did come, and one went straight to the cupboard to break it open, then he sprang out, and found that they were people from the country town--sons of a wheelwright, who were intimate with the widow who had charge of us. But, as he was alone, they rushed away and would not allow that it was them; but the spirits did not return, and we recovered much that they had left on the floor of the kitchen.