good-fortune, were enclosed the whole of
the savings from his salary. 'Master Jordan shook his head at this
passage, and cried out, deeply moved, yet as though vexed, while a
tear of motherly tenderness stole down Martha's cheek: "No! no! by no
means! What is the fool thinking of? He'll want the money himself--a
simpleton. Let him wait till he comes to the master-piece. What
pleases me most in the story, is his contentment and his humility. He
is not ashamed of his old silver watch yet. It is not everybody that
could act so. There must be strong legs to support such extraordinary
good-luck. These the bursch has!"'
After years of absence, the young man at last walks suddenly into the
paternal home, on his father's birthday, and makes them all scream and
weep with joy. '"Hark ye, bursch!" exclaimed Jonas, who regarded him
with fatherly delight, "thou seem'st to me almost too learned, too
refined, and too elegant for Veit Jordan. What turner has cut so neat
a piece of furniture out of so coarse a piece of timber?"' His stay,
however, was short. M. and Mme Bellarme (his employer at Paris) 'had
been loth, almost afraid, to let him go. The feeble state of health of
the former began to be so serious, that he durst not engage in the
bulk of his affairs. In the space of a year, both felt so complete
confidence in Veit's knowledge of business, and in his honour, that
they had taken him as a partner in trade, and in the foundry.
Henceforth, M. Bellarme contributed his capital only; Veit his
knowledge, care, and industry.'
The reform of the guilds, and the establishment of a technological
school for the young hand-workers--both through the instrumentality of
Jonas--we have no room to touch; for we must say a parting word on the
reunion of the family by Veit's return permanently from abroad.
Notwithstanding the prosperity of the now old couple, 'everything, ay,
everything, was as he had left it years ago--as he had known it from
childhood--only Christiane not. There stood yet the two well-scoured
old deal-tables, wrinkled, though, from the protruding fibres of the
wood; there were the straw-bottomed stools still; and at the window,
Mother Martha's arm-chair, before which, as a child, he had repeated
his lessons; there still hung the same little glass between the
windows; and the wall-clock above the stove sent forth its tic-tac as
fastly as ever. Father Jonas, in his enlarged workshop, with more
journeymen and apprentices, smelt
|