friends.

"Thus the small service done to the old man was richly
rewarded!" said Meta Mogen.

"Delaying is not forgetting," said the fellow.

The robbers were hanged.

There was an old mansion, it is still there; it did not belong
to Mrs. Meta Mogen, it belonged to another old noble family.

We are now in the present time. The sun is shining on the gilt
knob of the tower, little wooded islands lie like bouquets on the
water, and wild swans are swimming round them. In the garden grow
roses; the mistress of the house is herself the finest rose petal, she
beams with joy, the joy of good deeds: however, not done in the wide
world, but in her heart, and what is preserved there is not forgotten.
Delaying is not forgetting!

Now she goes from the mansion to a little peasant hut in the
field. Therein lives a poor paralysed girl; the window of her little
room looks northward, the sun does not enter here. The girl can only
see a small piece of field which is surrounded by a high fence. But
to-day the sun shines here--the warm, beautiful sun of God is within
the little room; it comes from the south through the new window, where
formerly the wall was.

The paralysed girl sits in the warm sunshine and can see the
wood and the lake; the world had become so large, so beautiful, and
only through a single word from the kind mistress of the mansion.

"The word was so easy, the deed so small," she said, "the joy it
afforded me was infinitely great and sweet!"

And therefore she does many a good deed, thinks of all in the
humble cottages and in the rich mansions, where there are also
afflicted ones. It is concealed and hidden, but God does not forget
it. Delayed is not forgotten!

An old house stood there; it was in the large town with its busy
traffic. There are rooms and halls in it, but we do not enter them, we
remain in the kitchen, where it is warm and light, clean and tidy; the
copper utensils are shining, the table as if polished with beeswax;
the sink looks like a freshly scoured meatboard. All this a single
servant has done, and yet she has time to spare as if she wished to go
to church; she wears a bow on her cap, a black bow, that signifies
mourning. But she has no one to mourn, neither father nor mother,
neither relations nor sweetheart. She is a poor girl. One day she
was engaged to a poor fellow; they loved each other dearly.

One day he came to her and said:

"We both have nothing! The rich widow over th