any great excitement, I could sleep on for three days and
nights without stirring. How pretty a child looks asleep! I never saw
him asleep before." Thus talked Adam and Martina, and looked fondly at
their child.

Adam felt as if there was not room for him in the attic. He sat down on
Martina's trunk, and, in such a gentle voice that it appeared to
proceed from some one else, begged her to stand out of the light, that
he might see Joseph, distinctly.

"I will remain here till he wakes," said he; and Martina told him again
and again, how Joseph on the preceding night had called out "Is it not
yet morning?" At the sound of these words the boy turned and moved
restlessly, but continued sleeping.

His mother now, however, bent over him, and called out to him in a
clear, ringing voice, "Mother, is it not yet light? The light is come,
Joseph! wake up. Your father is here."

Joseph now looked up with a face of surprise and curiosity, but he
began to cry bitterly from terror, when the gigantic form of his father
stood upright in the small attic; he probably appeared to the child
like some monstrous apparition in a dream, and when the large figure
interposed like a gloomy cloud, between the bed and the sunlight, the
attic seemed almost as dark as night. Martina had no little trouble in
pacifying the boy. Adam was obliged to leave the room till Joseph was
dressed, and during the few minutes that he was standing outside the
attic, while the mother was soothing the child, feelings of remorse for
his past transgression again smote him--but only for a moment; he was
Adam Roettmann still, who could and would be master of all; he was angry
with the boy, who did not seem to care for him, nor to clasp him round
the neck as he expected; he was resolved to teach him by stern
discipline, and that this very day, he must love and honour him as his
father.

When Joseph came out of the room he ran down stairs quickly, past Adam.

"The boy must be taught differently; this is not proper conduct towards
his father," said Adam to Martina, indignantly.

She, however, begged him to think how much the boy must love him, to go
in search of him through the snow, and at night, so fearlessly; as yet,
however, the child was naturally shy, and his father still a stranger
to him. Adam must try to win the love of his boy by gentleness and
kindness, and not suppose he could do this by force.

"You are right, quite right," said Adam, and he went down t