hair, and the sweet
child silently leaned her head down on the mother's shoulder, as though
to seek shelter from the vivid flash of lightning that suddenly rent
the black cloud above them. "Come in, child," said the mother, "we
shall soon have rain."

The daughter shook her head without saying a word. She was now gazing
steadily on the clear space of sky at the horizon, where the snow peaks
of the Oberland far away from the range of the thunder-cloud, rose
glittering in the moonlight, a wondrous spectacle indeed. "Dear little
mother," at length she said, "how vast the earth is! Yonder they
neither see nor hear anything of the storm that rages here. And yet
still further off, in that star just above the Rothhorn, they would
know nothing of it if our earth were to be shivered to atoms!"

Her mother made no reply. Her thoughts were--she herself did not know
where, but well she knew with whom--with the one they had always flown
to at the approach of bad weather for many years past; because, while
the sky was growing dark, she could not tell whether her boy had a roof
over his head or not.

"How the river feels and answers to the storm!" resumed the girl. "One
might really fancy one saw the surface shudder with terror as the
lightnings flash down. And yet they can go on dancing and fiddling in
the tavern on the little island yonder. They must be a godless set."

"They will soon leave off," said the mother, "it will be too bad even
for them. No human being is so hardened but what the hour comes when he
hearkens if God warns him. But let us come in. The drops that fall are
large as hazel-nuts."

"Look, mother," said the daughter holding her back, "there is something
not right going on there. The door of the tavern is suddenly thrown
open--people are rushing out--there is a girl in their midst--something
flashes like a sword-blade--listen! they are quarrelling--oh, what wild
unruly creatures!"

The thunder now paused, and a sound of angry voices as well as of
breaking glass was plainly audible, while a single clarionet,
undisturbed by all the noise and confusion, went shrilly on playing gay
dancing tunes.

"I would give a hundred crowns," said Frau Helena with brows knit, "if
that sink of iniquity yonder were removed from the town. I really might
be driven to think of changing my house in my old days, merely to
escape hearing and seeing such things as these."

"And just at this sweetest of all hours," interposed the g