a
family bound together by the strongest ties of love. Father, mother,
children, enjoyed the quiet gladness of a household into which the noise
of the great world without seldom penetrated. And in what else does
happiness consist, than in gladness and contentment? He who possesses them
needs to ask for nothing further. Had Master Heinzelmann always remembered
that, he would have saved himself from much toil and vexation.

One fine summer evening the Tischlermeister left his workshop as usual,
put on his lounging-jacket, lit his pipe, and turned his steps toward the
front room, from whence came the noise of merry laughter and shouts of
fun. Softly he approached behind the open door which concealed him from
his wife and children, leant himself at his ease on the lower half, and
looked smilingly down on the frolics of his little ones. The mother, with
the youngest girl on her lap, sat on the doorstep, while Fritz and Hans
crawled about the floor. They were playing a hundred tricks with the
kitten, which had come into the world only a few weeks before. Fritz had
got a piece of colored cloth for a plaything, and flung it across the
room, but with a thread cunningly fastened to it, so that he might pull it
back again. The kitten, according to the manner of young cats, leaped and
seized the lure with comical antics, but just as she fancied it was fast
between her paws, came a sudden pull, and away flew the prize, while she
looked after it with ludicrous astonishment. Then rose bursts of merriment
and shouts of delight, and the mother, glad in her children's pleasure,
laughed with them, and took care that the old cat should not disturb their
sport by any sudden outbreak of ill-temper.

Master Heinzelmann looked on for a little while, and amused himself,
without being seen, with his children's diversions. All at once, however,
he made a grave face, and said, "Enough, little ones; let the kitten go,
and come to supper. Come, dear wife, it is all ready."

As soon as the children heard their father's voice, they thought no more
about the kitten, but sprang up and ran toward him with merry faces. But
he did not hug and kiss them as he was accustomed to do; he gave them only
a short salute, and the same to his wife, who came toward him with her
hand held out, and the youngest child on her arm.

"Baptist," she said, "dear husband, we have had rare fun this afternoon;
you should see how cleverly Fritz can spring about with the kitten