The mother raised herself on her pillow and looked over at her child's bed. The moonlight played on the counterpane and the pillows and transfigured the face of the sleeping boy who had cried himself to sleep after telling his sorrowful tale, and on whose cheeks the traces of tears were still to be seen, although he now smiled again in his slumber and knew no more of the day's trouble. Round about the town of Neustadt the birds of night stirred in the bushes and along the edges of the streams and ponds; the night-watchman's hoarse voice sounded now near, now far; the clocks of the two churches quarreled about the right time and were of very different opinions; all the bats and owls of Neustadt were very lively, knowing their hours exactly and never making a mistake of a minute; mice squeaked in the wall of the bedroom and one mouse rustled under Mrs. Christine's bed; a bluebottle that could not sleep either flew about buzzing, now here, now there, now banging his head against the window, now against the wall and seeking in vain for some way out; in the next room the grandfather's chair behind the stove cracked and there was such a weird and ghostly pattering and creeping about in the attic that it was hard to adhere to the soothing belief in "cats." Mrs. Christine Unwirrsch, who, being gifted with a foreboding mind, usually had a keen and fearful ear for all the noises and sounds of the night and who did not in the least doubt the penetration of the spirit-world into her bedroom, had no time in this night to listen to these things and get goose-flesh in consequence. Her heart was too full of other matters and the ghosts that roam between earth and heaven and play at will on the nerves of men had no power over her. The mother felt her responsibility for the destiny of her child weigh heavy upon her and although she was a poor, ignorant woman she was not therefore less concerned; indeed, her concern was perhaps greater because her idea of her child's desire was incomplete and inadequate. She looked long at sleeping Hans till the moon glided on in the firmament and the rays slipped from the bed and slowly retired toward the window. When at last complete darkness filled the room she sighed deeply and whispered: "His father wished it, and no one shall set himself against his father's will. God will surely help me, poor, stupid woman that I am, to make it come out right. His father wished it and the child shall have his way according to his father's will." She rose quietly from her couch and crept out of the room with bare feet, so as not to wake the sleeping boy. In the living room she lit the lamp. She sat down for a few moments on her husband's work-chair and wiped the tears from her eyes; and then she carried the light to that chest in the corner of which we have already told, knelt down and opened the ancient lock which offered obstinate resistance to the key as long as possible.