The clergyman has no children: the school-master has three--two sons, one of whom is a merchant down by the fortress; the other is a machinist, and resides in America. He is said to have quite a large business. The daughter is the wife of the inspector of roads. The school-master is quite proud that he can say, "If I were to give up my position to-morrow, I could afford to live without work"--a state of affairs to which the skill and economy of his wife has greatly contributed. The couple lead a loving and tranquil life. They are hale and hearty, and, as it often happens when two persons have lived together many years, they have grown to look very much alike. Their garden was filled with teeming flower-beds. Florists from the neighboring watering-places would come daily to purchase flowers, and thus the garden had become a source of considerable profit. But now that the war had emptied the watering-places, the flowers were left to perish for want of purchasers. Annette instructed the school-master's wife in the art of drying flowers, and making pretty bouquets of them. Carl's mother, who lived in a little house out by the rock, worked every day in the garden of the school-master's wife. Annette was attracted by the woman. She was short and thin, old and stooping, but had wonderfully clear and sparkling eyes, and Annette felt quite happy to think that this old woman, who was almost deaf, could by means of her eyes still have so much enjoyment. During the summer, the spinner, as had been her wont every year, would scrape off the bark from the branches of the elderberry tree, and afterward tie up the branches in bundles. Annette did great damage by explaining to her--she had only learned it herself the day before--that they would be used to make gunpowder. When the old woman heard that, she felt as if she could not bear to touch the wood; but, as she had undertaken the task, she was obliged to finish it, and so went on with her work, although it was not without murmuring. Through Annette's insinuating herself into the intimacy of others, much that happened in our village acquired clearer colors, and greater importance in my eyes. I told her the history of the spinner. She had had a husband, a tall, handsome man. He had been employed as a laborer on the road, but had wasted all his earnings at the tavern. Besides that, he had been a sportsman, and had loved, above all things, to roam through the woods with the forester and his attendants, in search of game. While these things were going on, the wife had, with her own earnings, reared four children, who were always among the tidiest in the village. Whenever anyone expressed pity that she had so thoughtless and inconsiderate a husband, she would say, "Oh, that's all right. If he were not so shiftless a fellow, he would never have married me; he would have gone and married some woman better, handsomer, and richer than I was."