in
both his hands, he cried--

"Now you are my wife! You will carry the bag for me, and I will keep you.
Forward!"

And now Myrtle, lazy as she had always been at the farm, started off with
all possible willingness.

He followed her, singing, and tumbling over on his hands and feet to
express his joy!

From that day Myrtle has never been heard of.

Fritz almost died of grief when he found that she did not return; but a
few years later he found comfort in marrying Gredel Dich, the miller's
daughter, a fine, stout, active girl, who made him an excellent wife; and
Catherine, his mother, was quite pleased, for Gredel Dich was quite an
heiress!

Only Bremer could not be comforted; he was as fond of Myrtle as if she
had been his own child, and he drooped visibly from day to day.

One winter's day when he had got up, and was looking out of the window,
he saw a ragged but pretty gipsy girl passing through the village covered
with snow, and with a heavy bag upon her shoulders, and sat down again
with a deep sigh.

"What is the matter, Bremer?" asked his wife.

There was no answer. She came close. His eyes were closing. There he lay
dead.

UNCLE CHRISTIAN'S INHERITANCE

When my excellent uncle Christian Haas, burgomaster of Lauterbach, died,
I had a good situation as maitre de chapelle, or precentor, under the
Grand Duke Yeri Peter, with a salary of fifteen hundred florins,
notwithstanding which I was a poor man still.

Uncle Christian knew exactly how I was situated, and yet had never sent
me a kreutzer. So when I learned that he had left me owner of two hundred
acres of rich land in orchards and vineyards, a good bit of woodland, and
his large house at Lauterbach, I could not help shedding tears of
gratitude.

"My dear uncle," I cried, "now I can appreciate the depth of your wisdom,
and I thank you most sincerely for your judicious illiberality. Where
would now the money be, supposing you had sent me anything? In the hands
of the Philistines, no doubt; whereas by your prudent delays you have
saved the country, like another Fabius Cunctator--

"'Qui cunctando restituit rem--'

I honour your memory, Uncle Christian! I do indeed!"

Having delivered myself of these deep feelings, and many more which I
cannot enter into now, I got on horseback and rode off to Lauterbach.

Strange, is it not, how the Spirit of Avarice, hitherto quite a stranger
to me, came to make my acquaintance?

"Caspar!" he w