Outside, the stars were twinkling against the dark-blue background; small wisps of white mist hovered over the moist meadows; single streamers rose along the valley slopes; mild breezes rocked the faded foliage; here and there on the pasture a forgotten cow tinkled her bell for her forgetful master; here and there a frolicsome lad sent his merry cry flying over hill and dale. The commotion of the day and the driving lulled the old woman into deep sleep, and Uli, with tense muscles, held in the wildly racing Blackie to a moderately fast pace; Freneli was alone in the wide world. As far off in the distant sky the stars floated in the limitless space of the unfathomable blue ocean, each by itself in its solitary course, so she felt herself again to be the poor, solitary, forsaken girl in the great turmoil of the universe. When she had left aunt and uncle, when they were dead, she would have no one left on earth; no house for a refuge in time of sickness; no one to tell her troubles to; no eye to laugh and weep with her; no person that would weep when she should die; yes, perhaps no one who would escort her coffin to that narrow, cold resting-place that they would some day have to assign her. She was alone; solitary and forsaken she was to wander through the turmoil of the world to her lonely grave; perhaps a long journey through many, many lonely years, more bowed, more discouraged and powerless from year to year--an old, withered, despised creature, to whom scarce any would give refuge, even though begged for it in the name of the Lord. New sorrow quivered in her heart, lamentations were about to well up. Why did the good Father, who was called Love, let such poor children, who had nobody in the world, live, to be cast out in childhood, seduced in their prime, despised in old age? But then she began to feel that she was sinning against God, who had given her more than many had, who had preserved her innocence to this day, and had so formed and developed her that an abundant living seemed secured to her if God preserved her health. Little by little, as the hill-tops and the tree-tops peeped out of the mist, so the love-tokens which God had visibly scattered through her life began to appear--how she had been guarded here and there, how she had enjoyed many more cheerful days than many, many poor children, and how she had found parents too, much better than other children had, who, if they had not taken her to their hearts like father and mother, had still loved her and so brought her up that she could face all people with the feeling that she was looked upon as a real human being. No, she might not complain of her good Father up yonder; she felt that His hand had been over her. And was His hand not over her still? Had He perhaps taken compassion on the poor lonely girl? Had He decreed, since she had remained faithful till then and tried to keep herself unspotted by sin, to satisfy now the longing of her heart,