fort each other, she and Hans, as they stood cheerlessly
under the chill lee of the music stand; but their outlook was a dreary
one, and their efforts in this direction were not crowned with any great
success. Sometimes as Minna came home again along the west side of the
square, and saw in Spengler's window the wreaths of highly-artificial
immortelles with the word "Ruhe" upon them in vivid purple letters,
she fairly would fall to crying over the thought that until she should
become a fit subject for such a wreath there was small chance that any
real rest would be hers.

However, all this is aside from Gottlieb's horrified looks as he waked
from his troubled slumbers--looks which would disappear as he became
thoroughly aroused, but only to return again after his next uneasy nap.
One day he startled Aunt Hedwig by asking her if she believed in ghosts.
Remembering his severe words in condemnation of her casual reference to
these supernatural beings, it was with some hesitation that she replied
that she did. Still more to her surprise, Gottlieb turned away from her
hurriedly, yet not so hurriedly but that she saw a strange, scared look
upon his face, and in a low and trembling voice replied: "And so do I!"

And now the fact may as well be admitted frankly that a ghost was the
disturbing element that was making Gottlieb's life go wrong; that, as
there seemed to be every reason to believe, was hurrying him towards the
grave: for a middle-aged German who refuses to eat, whose regular sleep
forsakes him, and who actually gives up smoking, naturally cannot be
expected to remain long in this world.

It was the ghost of his dead wife. At first she appeared to him only in
his dreams, standing beside the desk in which he had placed the stolen
recipe for making lebkuchen, and holding down the lid of that desk with
a firm but diaphanous white hand. Presently she appeared to him quite as
clearly in his waking hours. Her face still wore an expression at once
tender and reproachful; but every day the look of tenderness diminished,
while the look of reproach grew stronger and more stern. Each time that
he sought to open the desk that he might take thence the recipe and make
his crime a practical business success, the figure assumed an air
so terribly menacing that his heart failed him, and he gave over the
attempt.

This, then, was the all-sufficient reason why the good lebkuchen
that would have proved Gottlieb a thief was not for sal