could all these wonders mean? As for Aunt Hedwig, she had sunk down into
her big armchair and her bright black eyes seemed to be fairly starting
from her head.

Herr Sohnstein locked the door again, as he had been ordered to do, and
then brought Hans through the shop and into the little back room. Hans
evidently was not a party to the mystery, whatever the mystery might
be. He looked at Minna as wonderingly as she looked at him, and he was
distressingly ill at ease. But there was no time for either of them
to ask questions, for as Hans entered the room from the shop, Gottlieb
returned to it. In his hand Gottlieb held the brown old parchment on
which the lebkuchen recipe was written; the smile had left his face; he
was very pale. For a moment there was an awkward pause. Then Gottlieb,
trembling a little as he walked, crossed the room to where Hans stood
and placed the parchment in his hands. And it was in a trembling, broken
voice that Gottlieb said:

"Hans, a most wicked man have I been. But my dead Minna has helped me,
and here I give again to thee what I stole from thy chest--I who was a
robber." Then Gottlieb covered his face with his hands, and presently
each of his bony knuckles sparkled with a pendant tear.

"My own dear father!" said Minna; and her arms were around him, and her
head was pressed close upon his breast.

"My own good brother, thou couldst not be a thief!" said Aunt Hedwig;
and, so saying, clasped her stout arms around them both.

"My good old friend! all now is right again," said Herr Sohnstein; who
then affected to put his arms around the three, but really embraced only
Aunt Hedwig. However, there was quite enough of Aunt Hedwig to fill even
Herr Sohnstein's long arms; and he made the average of his one-third of
an embrace all right by bestowing it with a threefold energy.

The position of Hans as he regarded this affectionately writhing group
(that was not unsuggestive of the Laoecoon: with a new motive, a fourth
figure, a commendable addition of draperies, and a conspicuous lack of
serpents) would have been awkward under any circumstances; and as the
circumstances were sufficiently awkward to begin with, he was very much
embarrassed indeed. To Aunt Hed-wig's credit be it said that she was the
first (after Minna, of course; and Minna could not properly act in the
premises) to perceive his forsaken condition.

"Come, Hans," said the good Hedwig, her voice shaken by emotion and the
tightness