re
expect to live the longer? For the half of that wasted money you could
have employed physicians in your illness. Blessings?--Yes, it's a fine
blessing to have your property seized and yourself put out of doors!
And what was it that induced you to put your hand in your pocket
whenever a beggar held out his tattered hat?--your heart, once more
your heart; and neither your eyes nor your tongue, your arms nor your
legs, but your heart. You took it--as the saying is--too much to
heart."

"But how can one train himself so that it would not be so any more? I
am exerting myself now to control my heart, and still it beats and
torments me."

"Yes, no doubt you find that the case," replied the giant, with a
laugh. "You, poor fellow, can not manage it at all; but give me the
little beating thing, and then you will see how much better off you
will be."

"Give you my heart?" shrieked Peter in terror. "I should certainly die
on the spot! No, never!"

"Yes, if one of your learned surgeons was to perform the operation of
removing the heart from your body, you would certainly die; but with me
it would be quite another thing. Still, come this way, and satisfy
yourself." So saying, he got up, opened a chamber door, and took Peter
inside. The young man's heart contracted spasmodically as he stepped
over the sill, but he paid no attention to it, for the sight that met
his eyes was strange and surprising. On a row of shelves stood glasses
filled with a transparent fluid, and in each of these glasses was a
human heart; the glasses were also labeled with names, written on paper
slips, and Peter read them with great curiosity. Here was the heart of
the magistrate at F., of the Stout Ezekiel, of the King of the Ball, of
the head gamekeeper; there were the hearts of six corn factors, of
eight recruiting officers, of three scriveners--in short, it was a
collection of the most respectable hearts within a circumference of
sixty miles.

"Look!" said Dutch Michel. "All these have thrown away the cares and
sorrows of life. Not one of these hearts beats anxiously any longer,
and their former possessors are glad to be well rid of their
troublesome guests."

"But what do they carry in the breast in place of them?" asked Peter,
whose head began to swim at what he had seen.

"This," answered the giant, handing him, from a drawer, a _stone
heart_.

"What!" exclaimed Peter, as a chill crept over him. "A heart of marble?
But look you, Dutch Mich