about my father meant nothing. I don't know how I came to say it.
Franzl must go. It is she who sets you against me."

In vain Lenz defended poor Franzl, and protested she did nothing of the
kind. Annele carried her point. In less than a fortnight the old woman
had to leave the house. Lenz comforted her as well as he could,
assuring her she should soon come back, and promising her a yearly sum
as long as she lived. But she shook her head, and said, weeping, "The
Lord God will soon put me beyond want. Never did I think to leave this
house, where I have lived for eight and twenty years, till I was
carried out. There are my pots, and my copper kettles, and my pans, and
my tubs; how many thousand times I have taken them in my hand, and
polished them up! They are my witnesses. No one can say I have not been
neat and orderly. The nozzle of every pot, if it could speak, would
tell who and what I have been. But God knows all. He sees what goes on
in the great room, and in the kitchen, and in each of our hearts. That
is my comfort and my _viaticum_ and-- Enough; I am glad to get out of
this place; rather would I spin thistles than stay here a day longer. I
don't want to make you unhappy, Lenz. You might hunt me down like a rat
before I would bring ill-will into the house. No, no, I will not do
that. Have no anxiety about me; you have cares enough of your own.
Gladly would I be crushed under the weight of them, if I could but take
them from you, and bear them on my own shoulders. Have no fear for me.
I shall go to my brother in Knuslingen. There was I born, and there
will I wait till I die. If I join your mother in Paradise, I will tend
upon her as she was used to being tended here. For her sake, our Lord
God will admit me, and for her sake you shall still be blessed in this
world. Good by; forgive me, if I have ever grieved you. Good by,--a
thousand times good by!"

For some time after Franzl's departure Lenz continued silent and
gloomy. All the higher did Annele's spirits rise in consequence. She
was indeed a witch, who could do with him what she would. There was a
magic in her tone, when she wished to please, that none could resist.
Pilgrim used all his influence to reconcile Lenz to this new state of
things. He tried to convince him that the old serving-woman had usurped
a certain authority which prevented his wife from being mistress in her
own house. Annele, in fact, had been brought up to take an active part
in household