tely, we don't take with us the
delightful peace we enjoy here, but we find it awaiting us when we come
home again. I cannot realize that I have been here so short a time, it
seems to me as if I had lived up here all my life; indeed, such quiet,
happy hours count for as much as years elsewhere."

"You explain everything so well, you are so clever. Recall this
feeling, if the day comes when you find it dull up here. Those people,
who would not believe that you could be happy in solitude, will be
surprised."

"Who refused to believe that? No doubt it was Pilgrim, that great
artist: a pretty fellow he is; if he does not find angels, he
immediately fancies them devils; but, I tell you fairly, he shall never
come under this roof."

"Pilgrim said nothing of the sort. Why will you persist in having some
particular person to hate? My mother said a hundred times over, the
only way to have peace of mind, is to think well of your fellow
creatures. I wish she had lived even a year longer, that you might have
profited by her wisdom. Was it not well said? You understand
everything. When we hate a man, or know that we have an enemy--I never
knew the feeling but once in my life and it was terrible indeed--we
feel, no matter where we go, or where we are, that an invisible pistol
is aimed at our heads. My greatest happiness is, that I hate no one,
and no one so far as I know, hates me."

Annele had not listened very attentively to this speech; she only
asked: "Who said it then, pray, if it was not Pilgrim?"

"No one, in fact, but I often thought so myself, I own."

"I don't believe that: some one must have put it into your head; but it
was very silly in you to tell me of it. I could repeat to you equally,
what people said about you; people whom you would little suspect! You
have your detractors also, just like other people; but I know better
than to irritate you by detailing such foolish talk."

"You only say this to pay me off. Well, I deserve it, and now we are
quits, so let us be cheerful again. The whole world is nothing to us
now; you and I form our whole world."

And both were indeed as happy as possible, and Franzl, in the kitchen,
was often seen moving her lips, which was her habit when she was
thinking of any particular subject, and on this occasion she thought
thus: "God be praised! it is all as it should be, and this is just the
way in which Anton and I would have lived together, if he had not
proved false, and marri