ll height--just
five feet one inch!

"The letter only says, most worthy and gracious lady,--and you, dearest
maiden," he proceeded--with a special bow to Lorischen, which the
latter, sad to relate, only received with a grimace from her tightly
drawn spinster lips--"that the young and well-born Herr is merely
grievously wounded, and not, thanks be to Providence, that he is--he
is--he is--"

"Why don't you say `dead' at once, and not beat about the bush in that
stupid way?" interposed the old nurse, who detested the little man's
hemming and hawing over matters which she was in the habit of blurting
out roughly without demur.

"No, I like not the ugly word," suavely expostulated the Burgher. "The
great-to-come-for-all-of-us can be better expressed than that! But, to
resume my argument, dearest maiden and most gracious lady, this document
does not state that the dear son of the house has shaken off this mortal
coil entirely as yet."

"I'd like to shake off yours, and you with it!" said Lorischen angrily,
under her breath--"for a word-weaving, pedantic little fool!"

"You mean that there is hope?" asked Madame Dort, looking a bit less
tearful, her grief having nearly exhausted itself.

"Most decidedly, dear lady," said the Burgher. "Does not the letter say
so in plain and very-much-nicely-written characters?"

"But, all such painful communications are generally worded, if the
writers have a tender heart, so as to break bad news as gently as
possible," answered the widow, wishing to have the faint sanguine
suspicion of hope that was stealing over her confirmed by the other's
opinion.

"Just so," said Burgher Jans authoritatively. "You have reason in your
statement; still, dear lady, by what I can gather from this letter, I
should think that the Frau or Fraulein Vogelstein who signs it wishes to
prepare you for the worst, but yet intimates at the same time that there
is room to hope for the best."

"Ah, I'm glad you say so," exclaimed the widow joyfully. "Now I read it
over, I believe the same; but at first, I thought, in my hurried glance
over it, that Fritz was slain, the writer only pretending he was still
alive, in order to prepare me for his loss. He is not dead, thank God!
That is everything; for, whilst there is life, there's hope, eh?"

"Most decidedly, gracious lady," responded the little man with effusion.
"If ever I under the down-pressing weight of despondency lie, so I unto
myself much comfort m