match, and lighted up a piece of candle he
found in the room, and the flame illumined the wretched dwelling. And
Ib looked at the little girl, and thought how Christine had looked
when she was young; and he felt that for her sake he would be fond of
this child, which was as yet a stranger to him. The dying woman gazed
at him, and her eyes opened wider and wider--did she recognize him? He
never knew, for no further word passed over her lips.

* * * * *

And it was in the forest by the river Gudenau, in the region of the
heath. The air was thick and dark, and there were no blossoms on the
heath plant; but the autumn tempests whirled the yellow leaves from
the wood into the stream, and out over the heath towards the hut of
the boatman, in which strangers now dwelt; but beneath the ridge, safe
beneath the protection of the high trees, stood the little farm,
trimly whitewashed and painted, and within it the turf blazed up
cheerily in the chimney; for within was sunlight, the beaming sunlight
of a child's two eyes; and the tones of the spring birds sounded in
the words that came from the child's rosy lips: she sat on Ib's knee,
and Ib was to her both father and mother, for her own parents were
dead, and had vanished from her as a dream vanishes alike from
children and grown men. Ib sat in the pretty neat house, for he was a
prosperous man, while the mother of the little girl rested in the
churchyard at Copenhagen, where she had died in poverty.

[Illustration: LITTLE CHRISTINE.]

Ib had money, and was said to have provided for the future. He had won
gold out of the black earth, and he had a Christine for his own, after
all.

OLE THE TOWER-KEEPER.

"In the world it's always going up and down--and now I can't go up any
higher!" So said Ole the tower-keeper. "Most people have to try both
the ups and the downs; and, rightly considered, we all get to be
watchmen at last, and look down upon life from a height."

Such was the speech of Ole, my friend, the old tower-keeper, a strange
talkative old fellow, who seemed to speak out everything that came
into his head, and who for all that had many a serious thought deep in
his heart. Yes, he was the child of respectable people, and there were
even some who said that he was the son of a privy councillor, or that
he might have been; he had studied too, and had been assistant teacher
and deputy clerk; but of what service was all that to him? I