"You are wrong," she answered. "Those few weeks on the estate are among the most consoling my life has known. I saw none of the faces that were repulsive to me--indeed many of those I held dear were also missing. Aunt Elizabeth had slept for six years in the family vault. Her 'inconsolable husband,' as he styles himself on the tombstone, coupled with a verse from the Bible expressing a hope of a reunion--perhaps you have seen it in the newspaper?--Uncle Achatz, went to France directly after the funeral, accompanied by the young Englishwoman, who, after the separation from Mademoiselle Suzon, had become indispensable to him as a reader and companion. In Paris, where to improve his finances he frequented gambling-houses, he met a doubtful character, who quarreled with him at faro and then shot him in a duel. As the traveling companion disappeared the same day, leaving nothing of any value, the unfortunate man was buried in a very simple manner at the expense of the Prussian embassy, and is still awaiting in French soil the day when he is to be interred by his wife's side. Hitherto my young cousin has lacked time and means to do this. Immediately after his father's death, he set to work zealously, under Uncle Joachim's supervision, to extricate his financial affairs from their utter disorder, and in every possible way improve the estate, so that in time the former splendor of the family might be restored. I should have been very glad to see Achatz, who had not been your pupil one whole summer entirely in vain. But just before I arrived he had set out with his young wife on a wedding journey to Italy. Nor did I see my cousin Leopoldine, who as you know married Cousin Kasimir, and has had no light cross to bear. My best friend, Mother Lieschen, had long since gone to her last rest. So I found only the old servants, the gardener, the villagers, who were all fond of me because Aunt Elizabeth's kind deeds reached them by my hands--and my dear old uncle, the sight of whom fairly startled me. He was sitting, crippled with gout, our family disease, in an uncomfortable chair by the stove, his dog, a grand-daughter of our old Diana, lying beside him, and his pipe, which had gone out, between his teeth. He could not light it himself with his bandaged hands, and Liborius did not always have time to attend to him. But his mind was as clear and bright as in his best days, and his old heart still throbbed as warmly as ever. I can not tell you, dear Johannes, what joy and enlightenment, even amid the saddest feelings, I experienced during those last days spent with the dying man. There the last ring forged around me by my own hard fate was shattered into fragments, and I felt ashamed of my weak-hearted melancholy in the presence of the quiet, brave, cheerful sufferer, who never allowed a complaint to escape his lips. Only when the pain became too severe, a stifled _nom d'un nom!_ sometimes slipped through his teeth with the smoke, and then he begged