So he raised himself on one elbow, no further, and laid his book open on the moss before him. "But it is in German!" cried Maggie, looking over to see. "Never mind, I will give it to you in English--I told you it was German." "What is the first story about?" "You will find that out as I go on. Now, you understand it is Pastor Harms who is speaking, only he was a famous hand at story-telling, and to hear him would have been quite a different thing from hearing me." And Meredith began to read. "'I will go back now a thousand years, and tell you a mission story that I am very fond of. I found it partly in the parish archives of Hermannsburg, and partly in some old Lüneburg chronicles. I say I am very fond of it; for after the fact that I am a Christian, comes the fact that I am a Lüneburger, body and soul; and there is not a country in the whole world, for me, that is better than the Lüneburg heath'"---- "Oh, stop, Ditto, please," cried Maggie, "what is a 'heath'? and where is Lüneburg?" "Ah! there we come with our questions. Lüneburg heath isn't like anything in America, that I know, Maggie. It is a strange place. There you'll see acres and miles of level land covered with heather, which turns purple and beautiful in the latter part of the season; but in the midst of this level country you come suddenly here and there to a lovely little valley with houses and grain-fields and fruit and running water; or to a piece of woods; or to a hill with a farmhouse perched up on its side, and as much land cultivated as the peasant can manage. So the people of the parishes are scattered about over a wide track, except where the villages happen to be. And for _where_ it is--Lüneburg is in Hanover, and Hanover is in Germany. You must look on the map when you go home. Now I will go on--