would make occasion to go to the door-way that he
might see if the setting of the table was begun.

"Patience, father! Presently! You are as bad as Bielfrak himself!"
Roschen would say; and as this attribution of gluttony to her father
was a time-honored joke between them, they always would laugh over it
pleasantly. And then Andreas would stand and watch his little _hausfrau_
with a far-away look in his gentle blue eyes as she bustled about her
work in the sunny room, her pretty dimpled arms bared to above the
elbow, her lovely cheeks (because of much stooping over the fire)
brighter even than the roses after which she had been named, her golden
hair done up in a trig, tight knot (as Aunt Hedwig had taught her was
the proper way for hair to be arranged while cooking was going on), and
over her tidy print gown a great white apron, fashioned in an ancient
German shape, as guard against the splash-ings and spillings which even
the most careful of cooks cannot always control. In the sunny windows,
opening to the south, flowers were growing; the Dutch clock, with
pendulous weights made in the similitude of pine-cones, ticked against
the wall merrily; Maedchen, the cat--who, being most prolific of kittens,
notoriously belied her name--sat bunched up in exceeding comfort on
a space expressly left for her upon the sunny window-ledge among the
plants; steam arose in light clouds from the various pots upon the
stove, and in the middle of the little room the table stood ready for
the dinner to be served.

It was a very cheerful, home-like picture this; and yet many a time, as
Andreas stood in the doorway and contemplated it, there would be tears
in his eyes, and a strange feeling, half of glad thankfulness, half of
very sorrowful longing, in his heart. She was so like her dead mother!
In look, in speech, in motions of the body, in turns of the head, and
in gestures of the hands she was Christine over again. Sometimes Andreas
would forget his fifty years and all the sorrows of hope destroyed and
irrevocable death-parting which his fifty years had brought him, and
would fancy for a moment that he was young again, and that the dearest
wish of his life was here fulfilled. And then she would call him
"Father!" and his moment's dream of happiness would die coldly in his
heart. Yet would there come to him always an after-glow of solacing
warmth, as comforting thoughts would steal in upon him of the happiness
not a dream--different from