t stand. Young people
now-a-days no longer know what is customary, and what is not. You must
talk, Kathrine, too, for it is bad luck to be silent when a mourner is
in the room, so say something."

The robust, cherry cheeked girl, blushing scarlet, stammered, "I really
can't," and then burst out crying.

Lenz fixed his eyes on her, on which she threw her apron over her face.

"Compose yourself," said he kindly; "thank God, every day of your life,
that you still have your parents. Now I have taken some of the soup."

"You must taste the other dishes also," urged Franzl.

Lenz did as she wished, though it was a painful effort; he then rose,
and the girl did the same, saying: "Do not be angry with me, Lenz, I
ought to have tried to comfort you, but--but--"

"I know; thank you. I can't speak much either, just now."

"May God preserve you! My father told me to say that he hoped you would
come to us; he cannot leave the house, as he has a bad foot."

"I will see: when I feel able I will come."

The girl left the room, and Lenz paced up and down, stretching forth
his hands, as if expecting some one to take hold of them, but no one
did so; then his eyes rested on his tools, and more particularly on a
certain file which hung on a nail by itself; he shivered as he laid
hold of it, for something was now in contact with his hand.

This file was the most precious heritage he possessed. There was an
indenture in its maple handle imprinted by his father's hand, for he
had worked with this same tool for more than forty seven years, and
liked to show it, and often said: "It seems scarcely credible that the
wooden handle should, in the course of years, become indented in this
way by the pressure of the fingers." Whenever a stranger came to call,
his mother used to exhibit the singular looking tool.

The doctor, in the valley below, who had a collection of old fashioned
clocks of the Black Forest, often begged to have the file, to hang it
up in his cabinet, but the father never would consent to part with it,
and still less the mother and son after his death. After his father's
burial, when the son was sitting alone with his mother, she said:
"Lenz, we must no longer grieve, we must bear our affliction with
patience. Take your father's file, and set to work--'Watch and pray,'
say the Scriptures, 'for the night cometh when no man can work.' Be
thankful that you have an honest trade already, and not one still to
seek. A thousand t