rneymen. A narrow entry led past the shop into a small,
well-kept courtyard, in whose centre stood a tall acacia-tree, three
quarters of which had died for want of air and sunlight, so that only
its topmost branches were still adorned with a few pale green,
consumptive-looking leaves, which every autumn turned yellow some weeks
before any other foliage. Here, in one corner, beside the pump, an
arbor had been erected by the head journeyman, for the daughter of the
house, when a school-girl; it consisted of a few small poles roughly
nailed together, and now overgrown with bean-vines, which bloomed most
dutifully every summer, but in the best years never produced more than
a handful of stunted pods. A little bed along the so-called sunny side
of the house contained all sorts of plants that seek the shade, and
thrive luxuriantly around cisterns and cellars; and in midsummer, when
the sun actually sent a few rays into the courtyard at noonday, the
little spot really looked quite gay, especially if the fair-haired
Reginchen, now a young girl of seventeen, were seated there reading--if
it chanced to be a Sunday--some tale of robbers from a book obtained at
a circulating library.

A grey, neglected back building, only united to the front house by the
bare adjoining walls, had also two stories, with three windows looking
out upon this courtyard; and a steep, ruinous staircase, which creaked
and groaned at every step, led past the ground floor, where the
workshop and journeymen's sleeping-rooms were situated, to the rooms
above. On the night when our story begins, this place was suffocatingly
hot. It was one of those evenings late in summer, when not a breath of
air was stirring no dew was falling, and when only the dust, which had
risen during the day, floated down in light invisible clouds,
oppressing with mountainous weight every breathing creature. A slender
young man, in a straw hat and grey summer clothes, softly opened the
door of the house, walked along the narrow entry on tip-toe, and then
crossed the stones with which the courtyard was paved. He could not
help seizing the pump-handle and cooling his burning face and hands
with the water, which to be sure was none of the freshest. But the
noise did not disturb any one; at least nothing stirred below or above.
He stood still a few moments and allowed the air to dry the moisture,
gazing meantime at the windows of the upper story, which reflected the
bright moonlight. Only