Of course the children had their share in the sacrifice. Gustaf was a hardy little fellow. He went to the village school, fed the hens, drove up the cows, and spent his spare time in any amusement which gave him the luxury of perpetual motion in the open air. He never lacked an appetite for his black bread and milk morning and night and his cabbage soup in the middle of the day, and took no trouble about his clothes so long as they were not fine enough to be hurt by birds-nesting in the woods or crystal-hunting in the torrent-beds on the mountain-side. He was a good and pleasant child, who always did well everything that could be done with hands; but he groaned sadly over his books, and the schoolmaster declared that all the birch-rods that ever grew in the Thuringerwald could never make a scholar of him. Uncle Franz had done more for him by promising to teach him the use of the rifle as soon as he could do a sum in compound division, and under the influence of that stimulus, Gustaf was making fair progress with his arithmetic. Greta had begun with great enthusiasm the work of making and saving money, but perhaps she had not altogether counted the cost, for she was certainly growing rather tired of it. She had not realized that saving money to go to America meant wearing her last winter's frock, and buying no new ribbons, and laying aside her beloved lace-making for the more profitable work of feeding calves and hens and spinning woollen yarn. She had always considered herself somewhat superior to her cousins and the other village-girls of her own age, but this superiority somehow did not prevent her feeling mortified when Lenchen had a new stuff gown and petticoat and Truda a new red cloak of fine cloth, while she must furbish up the gown she had worn two years already and wrap herself in the cloak which was already threadbare. The very fact that she was vexed at such a little matter vexed her all the more, as it showed her that she was not quite the grand person she had believed herself to be, and certainly did not tend to make her more amiable. If people could only have known "why" she did not go to the ribbon-peddler's booth at the fair and wore her old clothes, she should not have minded it so much; but Gertrude had thought it best to keep her design a secret—at least till she saw some probability of putting it into execution. Greta would not perhaps have been willing to give up the design of going to America, but she did wish in her heart that it had never been thought of. She began to think that perhaps life under the landgrave might not be so insupportable, after all.