Now when I found my Jupiter so to go about with these matters, I could well conceive that he, with so confused a mind, could give me little account of mine own, and so I made not my business known to him, but took the bull by the horns, and away by by-paths well known to me, to Lippstadt, where I inquired for my father-in-law as I were a messenger from foreign parts, and learned at once that he, with his wife, had quitted this world six months before, and secondly, that my dear wife, having been delivered of a man-child, that was now with her sister, had in like manner straightway, after her lying-in, quitted this mortal scene. Upon that I delivered to my brother-in-law the writings which I had before addressed to my father-in-law, to my wife, and to him, my wife's brother. Who would have entertained me himself, to learn from me, as from a messenger, how it fared with Simplicissimus and of what rank he was now. In the end mine own sister-in-law did at length converse with me, I telling of myself all the good I knew; for my pock-pitted face had so marred and changed me that no man could know me more, save Herr von Schönstein: and he, as my true friend, did hold his tongue. But I telling her at length how Herr Simplicissimus had many fine horses and servants and rode abroad in a black-velvet coat all trimmed with gold, "Yea," said she, "I did ever believe he was of no such low descent as he gave himself out to be: the commandant of this place did ever persuade my late parents, with great assurances, that they had made a good match with him for my sister, which had ever been a virtuous maiden: yet of all that I myself could never look for a good ending. Nevertheless did he content himself and resolve to take upon him either Swedish or Hessian service in the garrison here: and to that end would he fetch hither his goods that he had left at Cologne: which turned out ill, and he himself was by clean roguery spirited away into France, leaving my sister, that had had him to husband but for four weeks, yea, and a half-dozen of citizens' daughters likewise, with child by him; all which one after another, and my sister last of all, were brought to bed of boys. So since my father and mother were dead, and I and my husband without hope of children, we did adopt my sister's child to be the heir of all our property, and with the help of the commandant here did get possession of his father's money at Cologne; which same might be reckoned at three thousand gulden; and so the young lad when he shall come of age shall have no cause to count himself among the paupers. Yea, I and my husband do love the child so much that we would not yield him up to his own father though he came in person to fetch him away: moreover, he is the comeliest of all his half-brothers, and so like to his father as he had been cut out on his very pattern: and I know if my brother-in-law did but hear what a fair son he hath he would not delay to come hither were it but to see the little