orester met with the glad approval of
his father, who said: "It will soon turn out with the American forests
just as it does with the fishes of the sea. One cannot always be
harvesting and preying on others; it is necessary to plant and to
cultivate as well."

He requested Annette, who was very much interested in Wolfgang, and
spent much time with him, not to interfere with his wonted equanimity;
for she was constantly trying to discover how Wolfgang felt when he saw
a church-steeple, or heard the church-bells. She had just emerged from
an atmosphere which was religious to the exclusion of all other
considerations, and the youth was therefore a mysterious and marvellous
contrast to all that she had left behind her. He seemed to her the
representative being of later centuries; and she tried to discover how
things would be after our generation. She was pleased to call Wolfgang
'Emile, and reminded us of Rousseau's work of the name.

Ludwig's wife avoided Annette, who, in her impulsive way, had at once
desired to cultivate intimate relations with her. Conny, who was quiet
and reserved, had a dread of the restless fluttering of such a being as
Annette.

CHAPTER XI.

One evening, Martella came to me, and, with a timid manner to which I
was quite unused in her, asked me to allow her to return to Jaegerlies,
with whom she had formerly lived. She had heard that the old woman was
sick, and at the point of death. She had left her quite suddenly, and
now wanted to return; and thought it would be far better if she were
not to come back until our guests had left.

She extended her hand to me, and said, "I promise you that I will
surely return."

Her behavior puzzled me; and when I endeavored to find out why she
really wished to leave, she said that it might be a stupid feeling, but
she had a constant presentiment of some great misfortune near at hand.

I tried to persuade her that there were no grounds for this uneasy
feeling, as Ludwig, his wife, and Wolfgang all treated her as one of
the family. She persisted in her determination; and I at last reminded
her that she had promised my wife never to leave me.

"I did not think you would remind me of that," she said; "but, of
course, if you fall back on that, I shall remain here even if they try
to drive me away."

Martella might well feel anxious, for she was a living proof that our
family was incomplete; she, too, had been obliged to acc