ng
identical. He added, kindly, that the Landlord of the "Lion" had
probably miscalculated his resources, and, however heavily, yet without
any evil intentions. "I did not forget," said the Pastor, wishing to
give a different turn to the conversation, "that this is the
anniversary of your fifth wedding day, so I wished to come and say good
morning to you."

Annele thanked him cordially with a smile. But it flashed across her
mind, "And Lenz could go away without even saying good morning to me!"

She now told the Pastor, in fluent language, how pleased she was to
find that her Pastor should pay her such a compliment. She said much of
his goodness, and that the whole village ought daily to pray that God
might long spare him to them. Annele evidently wished, by her easy
volubility, to lead her visitor to other topics, in order to prevent
his discussing her affairs; she was resolved not to allow the Pastor,
even in the mildest form, to offer himself as a mediator in their
household discord. She screwed up her lips with the same energy that
Gregor the postilion displayed, when he was going to play one of his
well studied flourishes on the horn.

The Pastor saw this plainly enough. He began to praise Annele on points
where she really well deserved praise; that she was at all times so
stirring and orderly, and, with all her bantering ways, she had yet
invariably been strictly virtuous, and taken charge so admirably of her
father's house.

"I am so little accustomed to hear praise now," answered Annele, "that
the sound is quite strange to me, and I feel as if I never had been of
use during my life, or ever had been good for anything."

The Pastor nodded, though very slightly. The hook was fast in; and just
as a physician wins the confidence of an invalid by saying, "You
suffer from such and such a pain, you ache here, or you are oppressed
there,"--and the invalid looks up gladly, thinking, "This man knows my
complaint already, and is sure to cure me;" so did the Pastor contrive
to describe Annele's sorrows, as if he had experienced them himself.

Annele could no longer resist this sympathy, and Lenz came in for his
full share of reproach and blame. "Help us, Herr Pastor!" said she.

"Yes, I can and will; but some one else must help too, and that is
yourself."

The worthy man seemed suddenly to become taller, and his voice more
powerful, as he reminded Annele of her hardheartedness towards Franzl,
and of all the false