, "that Faller's Lorenz goes
abroad with our William."

Our story will tell why the young, white-haired mother asks the little
plant Edelweiss of her boy when he is starting for foreign lands. It is
a sad, a cruel history, but the sun of love breaks through at last.

CHAPTER I.

A GOOD NAME.

"She was an excellent woman."

"Yes, there are few such left."

"She was one of the old school."

"Go to her when you would, her help and counsel were always ready."

"And how much she went through! She buried her husband and four
children, yet was always brave and cheerful."

"Ah, Lenz will miss her sorely. He will find out now what a mother he
had."

"Nay, he knew that in her lifetime. His devotion to her was unbounded."

"He must be thinking of marrying soon."

"He can choose whom he will. Any house would be glad to receive such a
capable, excellent fellow."

"A pretty property he must have too."

"Besides being the only heir of his rich uncle Petrovitsch."

"How beautiful the singing of the Liederkranz was! It thrilled me
through and through."

"And how it must have affected Lenz! He has always before sung with
them, and his voice was one of the best."

"Did you notice he did not shed a tear while the minister was
preaching; but when his friends began to sing, he cried and sobbed as
if his heart would break."

"This is the first funeral that has not driven old Petrovitsch out of
the town. It would have been shameful in him not to have paid the last
honors to his own brother's wife."

So the people talked as they went their several ways through the valley
and up the mountains. All were dressed in sober clothes, for they were
coming from a funeral. Near the church in the valley, where stand a few
thinly scattered houses, the Lion Inn conspicuous among them, the widow
of the clock-maker Lenz of the Morgenhalde had been buried. All had a
good word for her; and their sad faces showed that each had met with a
personal loss in the good woman's death. As every fresh grief reopens
the old wounds, the villagers had turned from the newly covered grave
to visit those of their own loved ones, and there had prayed and
mourned for the departed.

We are in the clock-making district, among those wooded hills that send
their streams to the Rhine on one side and the Danube on the other. The
inhabitants are by nature quiet and thoughtful. The women far