Here, too, all was desolate and silent. But a peasant lad, who had been fishing in the lake and was now running home, answered my queries so far as to enable me to learn that the long building was the almshouse, and the chapel belonged to it, but there were no religious services held there now; and no one, except the paupers, were buried in the little grave-yard, whose sunken, slanting black crosses gleamed from under the shadow of the lindens. When I asked if I could go into the chapel, the child stared at me in astonishment, shook his flaxen head, and sped away on his little bare feet as swiftly as though the earth was beginning to scorch them. I now walked slowly around the chapel, and approached the house. Standing on a little bench in the flower-garden, before an open window, was a tall figure clad in black, gazing motionless into the dwelling. He was apparently a man of middle age, with smooth, brown hair, which fell slightly over a high forehead. The profile, whose noble lines denoted marked character, was strongly relieved against the whitewashed wall; the sun shone fiercely on his head and back, but, without heeding it, he held his hat before him in both hands, and did not even turn when I passed. The sound of my steps apparently did not reach his ear. His coat was old-fashioned in cut, but his appearance was by no means provincial. I would gladly have accosted him, had it not seemed as if he were listening to something, inaudible to me, that was being said inside the room. So I quietly passed him and went to the gable side of the house. On the steps in front of the open door sat an aged dame, stooping so far forward that her big black crepe cap shaded the tiny old book she held in her lap. A pair of large horn spectacles rested on the open pages, and her sharp red nose nodded strangely like the beak of a bird that is trying to peck at something. She was not asleep, for she sometimes sighed so heavily that the capstrings under her withered chin trembled. Then her yellow shriveled hand grasped a small lead box lying on the stone step beside her, and she took a pinch of snuff. "Can you still read, mother?" I asked, stopping before her. She looked up at me without the slightest sign of surprise. The stern, withered old face wore the anxious expression of a deaf person. I repeated my question. "Not so very well, sir," she replied in her Mark dialect. "When one has seventy-seven years on one's back the old eyes are of little use. But I can still manage tolerably with the hymn-book. I need only see the numbers and the big letters at the beginning to remember the whole at once; and if I can't get one verse exactly right, I think of the next one. Whoever has had experiences, and fears and loves the Lord, can make a verse for many a hymn in the book." "You have a beautiful spot for your old age, mother, and are well taken care of, it seems to me."