O how the drink refreshed me! Then Wilhelmi continued: "I have more to tell you, for now you are strong enough to bear the joyful news. Your children are already here. The telegram had been delayed, and they arrived half an hour in advance of it. They could not push through to this place, and so they went to the house of one of Annette's relations, with whom Offenheimer lives. That is what I am to tell you. After the procession we will meet them there." Wilhelmi had to tell me, first of all, how my children looked. He said that Richard still bore traces of his recent sufferings, but that his eyes would brighten and his whole face light up, whenever he looked at his wife. Wilhelmi regretted that he did not have a son to bring him such a daughter-in-law. He evidently wanted to cheer me up, for he bade me review in memory the triumphal march of my joys,--my children, my grandchildren, my sons and daughters-in-law, and my great-grandson. During the last words of Wilhelmi, we heard from afar, a noise as of the roaring sea--a wave of history came rolling onward. Cannon thundered, bells rang, and on came the great procession; and when the French flags were carried by and fluttered in the gentle breeze, I felt that I had seen the world wing itself for a new flight. From among the South German troops, a young officer nodded to me. It was Julius. My grandson was among the marching conquerors. The Emperor comes, and with him, all the heroes. The Emperor steps to the statue of his father, and the old man so greatly exalted by fortune, now becomes an humble son, and lays the captured flags at the feet of his father. CHAPTER XII. Led by Wilhelmi, I went to the house of our friends. Ikwarte stood in the door; he saluted me silently. I asked him whether my family were above. "Yes, sir." As we go up the stairs, we hear, behind us, hasty footsteps and a clattering sabre. It is Julius, his helmet adorned with a wreath of oak leaves. "Grandfather, have you seen them?" "Whom?" "Martha and Erwin." "Are they here, too?" "Julius" is called from above, and, the next moment, he is in Martha's arms. Then he embraces his father. "Come in; he sleeps," said Martha. "Come in all, fathers three." We walked through a glass-covered entry, then across a wide floor to the quietly-situated back-building, where the noise of the street could not penetrate. In the silent room, Julius knelt beside the cradle. Gently he raised the curtain; the boy awoke, and, for the first time, the eyes of father and son met. "Erwin, my son!" cried Julius, and kissed the child, who stared at him, and tried to clutch his eyes with his hands. Martha, too, knelt beside the cradle. She laid her hand on the husband's forehead, and said, "And at this head hostile bullets were aimed!" "Oh don't let us give way to our feelings," said Julius, rising.