Oswald had been staying nearly a week in the village, and he had never repented for a moment his acceptance of Mother Carsten's invitation. He enjoyed her highest favor. He had not made a line on the white-washed walls of his little bedroom; he always had a kindly word for everybody, even for the immensely old and almost crazy father of Mother Carsten, who sat all day long in his easy-chair, staring at the sun and at the sea, if his weary old eyes did not close in sleep, as was generally the case. Mother Carsten said Oswald was as "orderly and staid" a man as his predecessor, but that he was still less "right here,"--and the forefinger went up to the forehead again,--than the other one. Mother Carsten was induced to make such a strange remark by the fact that Oswald not only did not cover the walls of his bedroom with charcoal sketches of ships under sail, with cliffs around which the gulls were fluttering, and with original faces of weather-beaten sailors, as his predecessor had done, but that he did not draw or paint at all, but simply ran about all day long on the strand, or pulled himself all alone in a small boat so far out into the offing that they could hardly make him out in the distance! How he could amuse himself all the time. Mother Carsten could not divine; she would have probably thought it as mysterious as ever if she had seen Oswald, as soon as he was alone, draw a letter from his pocket which an old, odd-looking man had handed to him several days before, and read it over and over again, as if he had not long since known every word and every letter by heart. The odd-looking old man, who rode one of those high-legged, long-necked horses that Claus had seen in England, was, of course, no one else but old Baumann on Brownlock. Oswald had sent him word, the day after his arrival at the village, that he intended for the present to stay there, and the same information had been sent to Grenwitz. The next day already had brought him a letter from his beloved. It contained only a few words, hastily written on the journey, just before retiring, in a small town of Central Germany--a few words, confused and sad, but sweet and precious, like kisses from beloved lips at the moment of wedding. He had sent his answer back by Baumann, and was now looking daily for another and a fuller letter with an impatience which was by no means altogether joyous. All minds busy with ideals are apt to complain that nothing here below is perfectly pure, and that often as we strive to ascend into brighter and purer regions, a painful burden of earthy matter drags us soon down again to the eternal level.