many a little figure by Nelly's
hand graced some bed or alley,--all became now distasteful. "The stairs
creaked dreadfully; he did n't think they were quite safe. The ceilings
were so low, there was no breathing in the rooms. The hill would be
the death of him; he had pains in his knees for half the night after
he climbed it." Even the bracing air of the mountain, that was his once
boast and pride, was now a "searching, cutting wind, that went through
you like a knife." It was a mean-looking little place, too, over a
toy-shop, "and Hans himself was n't what he used to be."

Alas! there was some truth in this last complaint He was more silent and
more absent in manner than ever; sometimes would pass whole days without
a word, or remain seated in his little garden absorbed in deep thought.
The frequenters of his shop would seek in vain for him; and were it not
for Nelly, who in her father's absence would steal down the stairs
and speak to them, the place would have seemed deserted. On one or
two occasions she had gone so far as to be his deputy, and sold little
articles for him; but her dread of her father's knowing it had made her
ill for half the day after.

It was, then, a dreadful blow to Nelly when her father decided on
leaving the place. Not alone that it was dear by so many memories, but
that its seclusion enabled her to saunter out at will under the shade of
the forest-trees, and roam for hours along the little lanes of the deep
wood. In Hans, too, she took the liveliest interest He had been their
friend when the world went worst with them; his kindness had lightened
many a weary burden, and his wise counsels relieved many a gloomy hour.
It was true that of late he was greatly altered. His books, his favorite
volumes of Uhland and Tieck, were never opened. He never sat, as of
yore, in the garden, burnishing up his quaint old fragments of armor,
or gazing with rapture on his strange amulets against evil. Even to the
little ballads that she sang he seemed inattentive and indifferent, and
would not stop to listen beneath the window as he once did.

His worldly circumstances, too, were declining. He neglected his shop
altogether; he made no excursions, as of old, to Worms or Nuremberg for
new toys. The young generation of purchasers found little they cared for
in his antiquated stores, and, after laughing at the quaint old devices
by which a past age were amused, they left him. It was in vain that
Nelly tried to inf