d Rothfuss, "no wizard can do what is impossible. Our
Lord makes the wool grow on the sheep; but shearing the sheep, spinning
the wool, and knitting the stockings we have to do for ourselves."

On the next day, while we were seated at table, Rothfuss entered,
crying, "A proverb, and a true one; she has put me on my feet again. I
have got well."

I cannot recall a merrier Christmas than the one we then enjoyed. There
were no more like it, for in the following year the crown had departed.

My wife's father had, after withdrawing from his position as a teacher,
employed himself in translating Goeethe's Iphigenia into Greek. He had
left his task incomplete. As a Christmas present for mother, Richard
had brought lovely pictures to illustrate the poem, and in the antique
room of our house, in which we had casts of the best Greek and Roman
statues, Richard would read aloud to my wife.

Martella always had an aversion to this large room, and when she was
called in there would look around for a while, as if lost, and then
with scarcely audible steps leave the apartment.

My wife loved all her children, but she was happiest of all with
Richard. He seemed to have succeeded to her father's unfinished labors,
and when he was in her presence she always seemed as if in a higher
sphere. Richard had a thoroughly noble disposition and dignified
bearing.

Mother repeatedly read Ludwig's letter, and said:

"The Free-thinkers could not bring about what we are now experiencing:
that on a certain evening and at an appointed hour all mankind are
united in the same feeling. Do you believe, Richard, that you
philosophers could bring about such a result?"

Richard thought not; but added that the forms assumed by higher
intellectual truth were constantly changing, and that just as they had
given the church in heathen ages a different character, so they might
at some future time effect changes in later forms of religious belief.

Martella entered the room at that moment, and my wife's significant
glance reminded Richard that he had better not prolong the discussion.
We were a happy circle, and Richard was especially so because he had
made common cause with me in the last exciting question. The future of
our Fatherland, however, did not afford him a pleasant outlook. He
believed that the great powers were playing a false game and were only
feigning to quarrel in order that they might the more successfully
divide up the lesser states among