God be with you and keep you!" And then says I: "Mr. Angel, God, the Father, protect you! Be sure, when you come to the city, Christmas evenin', call, and I'll hold it an honor to see you: Raisins I'll have at your service, and hippocras, if you like it. Chilly 's the air, o' evenin's, especially down by the river." Day was breakin' by this, and right there was Todtnau before me! Past, and onward to Basle I wandered, i' the shade and the coolness. When into Mambach I came, they bore a dead girl to the grave-yard, After the Holy Cross, and the faded banner o' Heaven, With the funeral garlands upon her, with sobbin' and weepin'. Ah, but she 'd heard what he said! he'll waken her up when the time comes. Afterwards, Tuesday it was, I got safely back to my cousin; But it turned out as he said,--I'd somewhere forgotten my snuff-box! [Footnote C: _Dengle-Geist_, literally, "Whetting-Spirit." The exact meaning of _dengeln_ is to sharpen a scythe by hammering the edge of the blade, which was practised before whetstones came in use.] [Footnote D: According to an old legend, Fridolin (a favorite saint with the Catholic population of the Black Forest) harnessed two young heifers to a mighty fir-tree, and hauled it into the Rhine near Säckingen, thereby damming the river and forcing it to take a new course, on the other side of the town.] In this poem the hero of the story unconsciously describes himself by his manner of telling it,--a reflective action of the dramatic faculty, which Browning, among living poets, possesses in a marked degree. The "moral" is so skilfully inwoven into the substance of the narrative as to conceal the appearance of design, and the reader has swallowed the pill before its sugar-coating of fancy has dissolved in his mouth. There are few of Hebel's poems which were not written for the purpose of inculcating some wholesome lesson, but in none does this object prominently appear. Even where it is not merely implied, but directly expressed, he contrives to give it the air of having been accidentally suggested by the theme. In the following, which is the most pointedly didactic of all his productions, the characteristic fancy still betrays itself:-- THE GUIDE-POST. D' ye know the road to th' bar'l o' flour? At break o' day let down the bars, And plough y'r wheat-field, hour by hour, Till sundown,--yes, till shine o' stars. You peg away, the livelong day, Nor loaf about, nor gape around; And that's the road to the thrashin'-floor, And into the kitchen, I'll be bound! D' ye know the road where dollars lays? Follow the red cents, here and there: For if a man leaves them, I guess, He won't find dollars anywhere.