The chest was his cabinet of curiosities, for everything that had been important or remarkable in his life had its memento here; it was his family medicine chest, in which he stored his remedies for the troubles and cares of this world, which he used when he was sick at heart; simple remedies, but they always answered the purpose. They were not put up in vials and bottles and boxes, and no labels were fastened on them; they were merely plucked by his hand, in happy hours, and preserved for use. Everything, by which he could recall to his memory the purest joys of his life, was gathered here, and whenever he was sad, he refreshed his soul with them, and he never closed the old chest without deriving strength from his remedies, and expressing gratitude for them. There lay the Bible, which, when a boy, he had received from his father, there was the beautiful crystal glass, which his best friend had given him, when he left the University, there was the pocket-book, which his Regina had embroidered for him, when they were betrothed; there were sea-shells, which a sailor, whom he once directed into the right way, had sent to him, years after; there were little Christmas and New Year notes, from Louise and Mining, and Lining, which they had indited with infinite labor, and also their first attempts at needlework; there was the withered bridal-wreath worn by his Regina on their wedding-day, and the great silver-clasped, pictorial Bible, Habermann's gift, and the silver mounted meerschaum pipe, Bräsig's gift, upon his seventy-fifth birth-day. In the cupboard underneath, were old shoes; the shoes which Louise and Regina and himself had worn, when they first entered the Pastor's house. Old shoes are not beautiful, but these must have been very dear to him, for he had taken them out, and placed each pair by itself, and looked long at them, and thought much, and then he had taken his first Bible upon his lap, and opened at our Lord's Sermon on the Mount, and read therein. No one saw him, to be sure, but it must have been so; his Regina knew very well how it all happened. And then he grew weary, and laid his head back against the chair, and fell softly asleep.