d I could always be as sure of her counsel!"

Lenz set himself industriously to work. Without stood Franzl and
Katharine. "I am glad you were the first to bring the food," said the
old woman; "it is a good sign. Whoever brings the first morsel at such
a time-- But I have said nothing: no one shall say I had a hand in it.
Only come back this evening, and be the one to bid him good night. If
you bid him good night three times, something is sure to come of it.
Hark! what is that? Saints in heaven, he is working now, on such a day
as this! What a man! I have known him ever since he was a baby, but
there is no telling what queer thing he will do. Yet he is so good!
Don't tell he was working, will you? it might make people talk. Come
yourself for the dishes this evening, and be composed, so that you can
talk properly. You can generally use your tongue well enough."

Franzl was interrupted by Lenz's voice, calling from the door, "If any
visitors come, Franzl, I can see none but Pilgrim. Are you still there,
Katharine?"

"I am going this minute," said she, and ran down the hill.

Lenz returned to his seat, and worked without intermission, while
Franzl as busily racked her brain to make out this extraordinary man,
who, a moment before, was crying himself sick, and now sat quietly at
work. It could not be from want of feeling, nor from avarice, but what
could it mean?

"My old head is not wise enough," said Franzl. Her first impulse was to
go to her mistress and ask what she could make of it; but she checked
herself, and covered her face with her hands as she remembered the
mother was dead. To Franzl's consternation, visitors began now to
arrive,--various members of the Liederkranz, besides some of the older
townspeople. In great embarrassment she turned them away, talking all
the time as loud as if they were deaf. She would gladly have stopped
their ears, if she could, to keep them from hearing Lenz at work. "If
Pilgrim would only come," she thought. "Pilgrim can do anything with
him; he would not mind taking the tools out of his hand." But no
Pilgrim came. At last a happy thought struck her. There was no need of
her staying at home. She would go a little way down the hill, beyond
the sound of hammer and saw, and prevent visitors from coming up.

Lenz meanwhile was recovering composure and firmness over his work.
When he left off, towards evening, he descended the hill, and, taking
the path behind the houses, proceeded in