So she sat patiently long, endless hours. The light in the green tops of the trees in yonder woods became more golden. The shadows that lay along the edge became deeper and broader--one after another came out of the wilderness until at last they branched out in troops. From time to time flocks of pigeons flew like lightning over the prairie from one side of the forest to the other. High above them, in the bright sky, sailed more slowly chains of wild geese, filling the air with their monotone cry. Then again everything was still, and Catherine could hear the rushing of the blood in her temples. She could endure it no longer. It occurred to her that she had seen a couple of books in the house on a shelf too high for her to reach. She went in, pushed up the table, set a stool on it and got the books. There were two of them, bound in hog's leather, very dusty and worm-eaten--a Bible and a history, as it appeared. The writing on the fly-leaf was at first in Latin, which the minister's daughter understood well enough to decipher with a little pains. It stated that this book belonged to Conrad Emanuel Sternberg, formerly a student of theology at Heidelberg, who, in the year 1709, after his parents--well-to-do vintners in the Palatinate--had lost everything in the dreadful winter, when the wine in the casks and the birds in the air froze, in company with the young cooper, Christian Ditmar, from Heidelberg, had determined upon the great undertaking of emigrating to America, which he reached June 13th, 1710, more dead than alive, after a long and tedious voyage from the Rhine through Holland and by way of England. He settled on the Hudson with his friends and fellow-sufferers, where he hoped to end his life in quietness and peace. This pious wish was not fulfilled. Further notices followed this connected narrative, but written in the German language, as though the writer had meanwhile forgotten his Latin, saying that he had moved with his faithful companion, Christian Ditmar, from the Hudson to the Mohawk, thence to Schoharie and finally to Canada Creek. Then there was the date of his marriage with Elisabeth Christiane Frank, of Schoharie, the younger sister of Ursula, his old friend's and now brother-in-law's wife, the birthdays of his sons, Lambert and Conrad, and the death of Christiane. With this sad event the record of the life of the old Heidelberg student was closed. He had not written a line more. Catherine looked thoughtfully at the faded writing, gently closed the lid and opened the second, smaller book. It was entitled: "Description of the destruction of the city of Heidelberg on the 22nd and 23rd of May, 1689."