ee
times in the forest to-day. If you wake me up again, the Holy Child
will bring you nothing to-morrow but a birch rod."

The boy sighed deeply, and said, "Good-night, then, till to-morrow,"
and wrapped himself up in the bed-clothes.

The room where this dialogue took place, was small and dark; an attic
under a thatched roof. The panes of glass in the little window were
frozen over, so that the bright moonlight could not penetrate through
them. The mother rose, and bent over the child; he was sleeping sound,
and lying quiet. The mother, however, could not go to sleep again,
though she had once more laid down and closed her eyes; for we can hear
her saying distinctly, "Even if he some day asks me to share his
home--and in spite of everything I firmly believe he will one day do
so--he cannot do otherwise--he must--but even then, how cruelly he has
slighted both me and our child! The years that are passed come no more:
we can have them but once in life. Oh! if I could but begin life again;
if I could only awake, and feel that it was not true, and that I had
never sinned so heavily! but the weight of one sin is a burden for
ever; no one can bear it for another. Can it be true that I was once so
gay and happy as people say? What could the child mean by calling out
three times, Is it morning yet? What is to happen in the course of this
day? Oh, Adam! Adam! you don't know all I suffer; if you did, you could
not sleep either."

The stream that ran past the house was frozen over, but in the silence
of the night, the gurgling of the water was heard, under the covering
of ice.

The thoughts of the wakeful woman followed the current of the brook, in
its distant flow, when, after traversing pathless valleys and deep
ravines, its course was checked by the forest mill; the waters rushing,
and foaming, and revolving over the mill wheels, just as the thoughts
of this watchful mother revolved dizzily on her sorrows at dead of
night. For within that mill dwells the dreaded object on whom the eyes
of Adam's parents were fixed. The forest miller's Tony had always been
thought a good-hearted, excellent girl, and yet now she seemed so
cruel:--what has the forest miller's daughter Tony to do with you? you
have no claim on her--but on him? on Adam? The sleepless girl clenched
her hands convulsively; she felt a stab in her heart, and said, in a
voice of anguish, "Can he ever be faithless to me? No, he could not;
but if he dared to desert m