d; and then I fell asleep, and
did not awake until the bright daylight shone into my room.

CHAPTER IV.

_May_ 28, 1870.

"Good-morning, dear Henry," she said to herself, this day forty-six
years ago, when she awoke on the last morning she spent in her own
chamber.

"Good-morning, Gustava," said I, opening my eyes. It was the
anniversary of our wedding-day, and every year while we were together,
these were the first accents from her lips and mine--in joy and in
sorrow, always the same.

And this very morning, when awakening, I heard her quite distinctly in
my dream saying, "Good-morning, Henry." But I am alone. She has been
snatched away from me.

On this day our first-born returns from the new world. I am writing
these words in the early dawn, as it will be a long while before I
again have a chance quietly to set down my recollections. I will now
prepare myself to go forth and meet my son.

_June_, 1870.

Ludwig and Richard have gone to the capital, and I have at last quiet
and time to note down his arrival and his presence with us.

I had just finished writing the above lines, on the twenty-eighth of
May, when I heard Rothfuss drawing the chaise up from the barn to the
front of the house. He then placed the jack-screw under the frame and
took off one wheel after the other and greased the axles, singing and
whistling while at his work.

He saw me seated at the window, and called out in a joyful voice:

"One waits ever so long for the Kirchweih,[4] but it comes at last.
Martella is up already, and has been fixing up the beehives with red
ribbons; the bees, too, are to know that joy comes to this house
to-day. While busy at her work, she called out Ernst's name, as if she
could drag him here that way. But to-day we must not let ourselves
remember that any one is missing."

There it was again. No cup of joy without its drop of gall.

But the mind has great power, and one can force himself to forget
things.

It would be wrong towards my son Ludwig, if I were to mix other
feelings with joy at his return; and it is also wrong towards myself
not to permit a single pleasure to be without alloy.

My spirits were, however, not a little checked on my being reminded of
Ernst. Every nerve in me trembled, so that I began to believe that I
would not be able to survive the hou