laimed heartily to Pilgrim: "How happy you and Lenz are in your
friendship! from this day let me make one with you."

Pilgrim was loud in his praises of Annele, as Lenz accompanied him part
of the way down the hill.

"Never has a dinner tasted so good as to-day's," exclaimed the husband,
joyfully, as he re-entered the little room. "What greater happiness can
there be in the world than to earn your meat and drink by honest toil,
and have a darling wife and a faithful friend to enjoy it with you?"

"Yes, Pilgrim is an entertaining fellow," returned Annele.

"I am so glad you have converted him," added Lenz. "He was not quite
inclined to like you; but you are a perfect witch; you can do what you
like with everybody."

Annele was silent, and Lenz began to feel almost sorry he had told her
that: there was no occasion for it. But honesty never can come amiss.
He repeated that she ought to feel particularly happy at having turned
an enemy into a friend. She still made no answer; and afterwards, when
Pilgrim's name was mentioned, kept a resolute silence.

Annele despaired of doing anything with Lenz until she could make him
give up his cheerful views of human nature. As time went on, she gained
many a victory by showing him, on every possible occasion, how mean,
how wicked and deceitful, men were.

"I never knew that such were the ways of the world. I have lived like a
child," said Lenz.

"I have been abroad in the world for you, Lenz," Annele answered. "I
have known thousands and thousands of persons in their business and
other relations. I have heard how differently they talk behind a man's
back from what they do to his face, and have seen them laughing at him
for being taken in by fair professions. Hardly anybody says what he
really believes. I can tell you more of the world than you would have
learned in ten years of travel."

"But of what use is it?" asked Lenz. "I don't see that it does any
good. If we keep on our own straightforward way, the world about us may
be as bad as it will, it can do us no harm. Besides, there are plenty
of honest persons in it. A child brought up in an inn is, as you say,
at home among strangers. You told me that evening when we first talked
together how keenly you felt your position. You must be glad to have at
last a little home of your own, where every passer-by has not the right
to come in, and defame himself and his neighbors over his mug of beer."

"Certainly," answered Annele,