ctor had offered to get him employment in the
Church, if he would give up his new connections: but the more earnest
character of his new faith exerted so much influence over his
enthusiastic nature, that he willingly abandoned his bright prospects to
become a more humble labourer in a less productive vineyard.

"My father, as the clerk of the parish, seemed to think himself bound to
share in the indignation of his pastor for this desertion, and Heinrich
was severely condemned by him for displaying such ingratitude to his
benefactor: I was commanded to think no more of him.

"This, however, was not so easy a matter, although our correspondence
appeared to have entirely ceased. I knew not where to address a letter
to him, and was quite unaware of what his future career was now to be."

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.

"Time passed on. With all, except myself, Heinrich Reichardt appeared
to be forgotten; in the opinion of all, except myself, he had forgotten
our house, and all the friends he had once made there. Our good rector
had been removed by death from the post he had so ably filled; and my
father being incapacitated by age and infirmity from attending his
duties in the church, had his place filled by another. He had saved
sufficient to live upon, and had built himself a small cottage at the
end of the village, where we lived together in perfect peace, if not in
perfect happiness.

"I had long grown up to womanhood, and having some abilities, had been
employed as one of the teachers of the girls' school, of which I had
raised myself to be mistress. I conducted myself so as to win the
respect of the chief parochial officers, from more than one of whom I
received proposals of marriage: but I never could reconcile myself to
the idea of becoming the wife of any man but the long-absent Heinrich,
and the new clerk and the overseer were fain to be content with my
grateful rejection of their proposals.

"I determined to wait patiently till I could learn from Heinrich's own
lips that he had abandoned his early friend. I could never get myself
to believe in the possibility of his unfaithfulness; and the
remembrances of our mutual studies in the Book of Truth seemed always to
suggest the impossibility of his acting so completely at variance with
the impressions he had thence received.

"I was aware that if I had mentioned my hopes of his one day coming to
claim me, I should be laughed at by every one who knew anything of