s people know each other on a journey, each incommoding
the other and wishing that either oneself or the good neighbour were
away. Yes, this was the kind of thing Anthony felt.

"I am an honest girl," said Molly; "and I myself will tell you what it
is. Much has changed since we were children together--changed inwardly
and outwardly. Habit and will have no power over our hearts. Anthony,
I should not like to have an enemy in you, now that I shall soon be
far away from here. Believe me, I entertain the best wishes for you;
but to feel for you what I know now one may feel for a man, has never
been the case with me. You must reconcile yourself to this. Farewell,
Anthony!"

And Anthony bade her farewell. No tear came into his eye, but he felt
that he was no longer Molly's friend. Hot iron and cold iron alike
take the skin from our lips, and we have the same feeling when we kiss
it: and he kissed himself into hatred as into love.

Within twenty-four hours Anthony was back in Eisenach, though
certainly the horse on which he rode was ruined.

"What matter!" he said: "I am ruined too; and I will destroy
everything that can remind me of her, or of Lady Holle, or Venus the
heathen woman! I will break down the apple tree and tear it up by the
roots, so that it shall never bear flower or fruit more!"

But the apple tree was not broken down, though he himself was broken
down, and bound on a couch by fever. What was it that raised him up
again? A medicine was presented to him which had strength to do
this--the bitterest of medicines, that shakes up body and spirit
together. Anthony's father ceased to be the richest of merchants.
Heavy days--days of trial--were at the door; misfortune came rolling
into the house like great waves of the sea. The father became a poor
man. Sorrow and suffering took away his strength. Then Anthony had to
think of something else besides nursing his love-sorrows and his anger
against Molly. He had to take his father's place--to give orders, to
help, to act energetically, and at last to go out into the world and
earn his bread.

Anthony went to Bremen. There he learned what poverty and hard living
meant; and these sometimes make the heart hard, and sometimes soften
it, even too much.

How different the world was, and how different the people were from
what he had supposed them to be in his childhood! What were the
minne-singer's songs to him now?--an echo, a vanishing sound! Yes,
that is what he thou