your
brother has told me, if he has but a few pounds, he does n't think at
all of himself; he always looks out for one still poorer than he is, and
then gives all away: and he 's always engaged in aiding and assisting
others. Oh! dear, and yet he is so poor! May be at this moment he is
hungry and cold; and he is said to be in ill-health, besides."

"Wife, I would willingly do the man a good turn if I could. If, now, he
had some land, I would plough, and sow, and reap, and carry, and thresh
by the week together for him. I should like to pay him attention in such
a way that he might know there was at least one who cared for him. But
his profession is one in which I can't be of any use to him."

"Well, just seek him out and speak with him once; you are going to-day,
you know, with your wood to Leipzig. Seek him out and thank him; that
sort of thing does such a man's heart good. Anybody can see him."

"Yes, yes; I should like much to see him, and hold out to him my
hand,--but not empty: I wish I had something!"

"Speak to your brother, and get him to give you a note to him."

"No, no; say nothing to my brother; but it might be possible for me to
meet him in the street. Give me my Sunday coat; it will come to no harm
under my cloak."

When his wife brought him the coat, she said: "If, now, Gellert had a
wife, or a household of his own, one might send him something; but your
brother says he is a bachelor, and lives quite alone."

Christopher had never before so cheerfully harnessed his horses and put
them to his wood-laden wagon; for a long while he had not given his
hand so gayly to his wife at parting as to-day. Now he started with
his heavily-laden vehicle through the village; the wheels creaked and
crackled in the snow. At the parsonage he stopped, and looked away
yonder where his brother was still sleeping; he thought he would wake
him and tell him his intention: but suddenly he whipped up his
horses, and continued his route. He would n't yet bind himself to his
intention--perchance it was but a passing thought; he does n't own that
to himself, but he says to himself that he will surprise his brother
with the news of what he has done; and then his thoughts wandered away
to the good man still sleeping yonder in the city; and he hummed the
verse to himself in an old familiar tune.

Wonderfully in life do effects manifest them-selves, of which we have no
trace. Gellert, too, heard in his dreams a singing; he knew no