"He seems still to owe me a grudge," says Johannes, "for having discovered the hiding place to which he had carried his hardly-stolen little hoard." "You will persist in being prejudiced against him," answers Martin, "just like Trude too--you are unjust towards him,--most unjust." Johannes laughingly shakes his head; then he points to a door leading to a newly erected partition. "What's that?" Martin moves about uneasily. "My office," he then stammers, and, as Johannes attempts to open the door, he runs up to him and catches him back by his coat-tails. "I beg of you," he mutters, "do not cross that threshold. Not to-day--nor any other day.--I have my reasons." Johannes looks at him in vexation. "Since when have you secrets from me," he feels impelled to ask, but his brother's trustful, pleading look closes his lips, and arm in arm they leave the mill together. Evening has come.--The great wheel is at rest, and with it the host of smaller ones.--Silence is over all the mill and only in the distance the rushing water of the weir sings its monotonous song. Here of course--in front of the house--the mill-brook is quiet and peaceful, as though it had nothing in the world to do but to carry water-lilies and to mirror the setting sun in its depths. Like a golden-red, dark-edged streamer it winds along between the straggling thicket of alders, in which a choir of nightingales are just clearing their throats and, all unconscious of their superior merit, are about to commence a singing competition with the frogs down there. The three human beings who are henceforth to pass their days together in this blossoming, song-laden solitude have already become lovingly intimate. They sit on the veranda around the white-spread supper-table, the food upon which has to-day found little appreciation, and their gaze is full of intense content. Martin rests his head on his hands and draws great clouds of smoke from his short pipe, from time to time emitting a sound which is something of a laugh, something of a growl. Johannes has quite buried himself in the mass of foliage and lets the tendrils of the wild vine play about his face. They tremble and flutter with his every breath.