ree and confident before him.

What had happened? What could have happened? Now, for the first time,
Carlen saw the full beauty of his face; it wore an exultant look as of
one set free, triumphant. He leaped lightly over the bars; he stooped
and fondled the dog, speaking to him in a merry tone; then he whistled,
then broke again into singing a gay German song. Carlen was stupefied
with wonder. Who was this new man in the body of Wilhelm? Where had
disappeared the man of slow-moving figure, bent head, downcast eyes,
gloom-stricken face, whom until that hour she had known? Carlen clasped
her hands in an agony of bewilderment.

"If he has found his sweetheart, I shall die," she thought. "How could
it be? A letter, perhaps? A message?" She dreaded to see him. She
lingered in her room till it was past the supper hour, dreading what she
knew not, yet knew. When she went down the four were seated at supper.
As she opened the door roars of laughter greeted her, and the first
sight she saw was Wilhelm's face, full of vivacity, excitement. He was
telling a jesting story, at which even her mother was heartily laughing.
Her father had laughed till the tears were rolling down his cheeks. John
was holding his sides. Wilhelm was a mimic, it appeared; he was
imitating the ridiculous speech, gait, gestures, of a man he had seen in
the village that afternoon.

"I sent you to village sooner as dis, if I haf known vat you are like
ven you come back," said Farmer Weitbreck, wiping his eyes.

And John echoed his father. "Upon my word, Wilhelm, you are a good
actor. Why have you kept your light under a bushel so long?" And John
looked at him with a new interest and liking. If this were the true
Wilhelm, he might welcome him indeed as a brother.

Carlen alone looked grave, anxious, unhappy. She could not laugh. Tale
after tale, jest after jest, fell from Wilhelm's lips. Such a
story-teller never before sat at the Weitbreck board. The old kitchen
never echoed with such laughter.

Finally John exclaimed: "Man alive, where have you kept yourself all
this time? Have you been ill till now, that you hid your tongue? What
has cured you in a day?"

Wilhelm laughed a laugh so ringing, it made him seem like a boy.

"Yes, I have been ill till to-day," he said; "and now I am well." And he
rattled on again, with his merry talk.

Carlen grew cold with fear; surely this meant but one thing. Nothing
else, nothing less, could have thus in an hour rol