in no very cordial tone. Lenz had vexed
her again by undervaluing her former life. He seemed to fancy she had
not known what happiness was till he revealed it to her.

CHAPTER XXIV.

OLD HEIRLOOMS ARE BANISHED, AND A NEW TONE IS
HEARD ON THE MORGENHALDE.

The wedding week and many other weeks and months passed, during which
little occurred worthy to be recorded in our story. Almost every
morning Annele laughed at Lenz for his astonishment over the loaf of
fresh white bread which the landlady sent up daily from the town. It
was not the delicacy that surprised him so much as the fact that
persons should become dependent upon such things. Many luxuries that
Lenz had considered only suitable for holidays were to Annele every-day
necessities. She ridiculed his ignorance, which knew not how to double
the comforts of life without increasing the expense; and a great
improvement she certainly introduced into their way of living, baking
better bread out of the same meal, and in all household matters
bringing to pass much greater results with the same outlay. But, on the
other hand, she was often discontented, and especially in the spring
was apt to complain: "Dear me, how the wind blows up here! it is enough
to take the roof off the house."

"I cannot help it, dear child. We get good fresh air to pay for it.
Every breath we draw is like a draught of dew. Remember how you used to
delight last autumn in our bright, cheerful sunshine, when the valley
was shrouded in mist. And what good water we have too! People live to
be old, ever so old, up here. As for the house, you need have no
particle of concern for that. It is built of whole trunks of trees, and
will stand for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren."

When the snow began to melt, and the usually empty gullies on the
mountain-side were, to Lenz's great delight, filled with the rushing
streams, Annele complained that she could not sleep for the noise of
the water.

"You often complained in the winter of the deathly stillness up
here,--that you could hear no wagon and see no passing; now you have
noise enough." Annele gave her husband a sidelong glance, and, without
answering, went into the kitchen, and had a good cry with Franzl. The
old woman cautioned Lenz against contradicting his wife; it was not
well for her or the child she bore.

Lenz was quiet and industrious, and took great pleasure in