She was sobbing no longer. Her hands limply in her lap, her tear-stained face composed, her shoulders relaxed and stooped forward, she stared blankly in front of her, looking without seeing, her great eyes wide open and full of heart-rending sadness. “Will you write to me?” “Will I write to you? As often as the post will carry my letters. I’ll tell you all about the wonderful things in Frankfort. By the way, father said the streets in Frankfort are lighted at night—light enough to read—rows of great lanterns in the streets! Wouldn’t you like to see Frankfort?” A sob was her only reply. “But you will come to Frankfort. I’ll be in the banking business there, and I will send for you, sweetheart mine.” VIII. Soon the winter was gone. Men and women came to the sun’s aid with hatchet and pick-axe, hacking and chopping and chipping the frozen mass, glittering diamonds flying in the air and catching the genial rays of the early spring sun. There was joy in every heart and even greater joy in Albert’s breast. As soon as all the ice was gone and the road dried his father was to take him to Frankfort. His heart thrilled at the sound of the running waters, washing away the last traces of the hoary winter. He helped clear away the ice in the shadowy part of the yard which the sunbeams could not reach. He desired to hasten the arrival of spring, the day on which he could start on the great journey. On the evening before his departure he and Christian took their last stroll. It was early in the evening, a young moon in the sky, the scents of spring in the air, from afar the rumbling sound of the awakening Rhine, and the gurgling of running waters. Two shadows, so clearly outlined on the ground, preceded them like bodyguards; one was taller than the other. The streets were dark save for the moonlight and the occasional glimmer from a window. Albert’s voice, like the running waters, never ceased. He was talking of Frankfort, of his journey, of his future. While he knew he was to be apprenticed to a banker, the duties of such apprenticeship were not clear in his mind. He made the duties fit his dreams. They had now reached the river, which had spread, as it always did at this time of the year, and had risen higher, and was flowing with increased speed. There was a glow like a milky-way along the midstream where the moonbeams rested lightly upon the rippling waters.