parently improved in health. Early in the spring,
however, when the snow was beginning to melt, he died.

Not long afterward old Petrovitsch, too, was buried. He had made a
brave struggle against death. His paroxysms of coughing had increased
in violence and frequency since the autumn, and in one of them he was
finally choked to death. As the doctor had conjectured, he left no
property except a life-annuity which he had bought with what little
money the gaming-table at Baden-Baden had spared. Thus many seeming
inconsistencies in the old man's conduct were accounted for. The
doctor maintained that all his dislike of other men sprang from
dissatisfaction with himself.

Faller's sons were all provided for. Lenz took one into his house, and
Katharine adopted the second pair of twins. She only wanted one, but
the children could not bear to be parted. The little girl remained with
her mother.

Franzl took delight in telling her old friend Katharine of the sort of
life that was led on the Morgenhalde.

"I don't know which of us Annele spoils the most, her husband or me.
The angels in heaven must rejoice to see the life they lead together.
You know I am from Knuslingen, and therefore, though I mean to take no
credit to myself, manage to see more than most persons. At first there
lurked a fear of each other in their hearts,--a fear lest some
thoughtless word might open the old wound, as flames sometimes break
out afresh amid the ruins of a house that has been burned. But they
gradually learned that each had always dearly loved the other, and that
what had seemed unkindness and hate was only the pain of not having
rightly learned to conform to each other's habits. Now Annele has given
up all desire for a hotel, and Lenz has grown more of a man. The
Liederkranz has become quite a different sort of society, and my Lenz
is the chief member of it; all say he has the finest voice and the best
managed of all the singers. There is a new society started which in
some way is to help everybody. The weight-manufacturer from Knuslingen
can explain it better than I can, for he is one of the members. Did you
know that my Lenz's musical clock had taken the first prize at some
great exhibition, and that he had received a medal from England? He
told Annele that he cared for it only as it might prove to her that he
was capable of accomplishing something after all; at which she cried
and told him, all that was buried with their past life, and n