ghingly remonstrated.
"You have plenty to go through this life with, and that is all one
wants. That is just the comfort of having a cold heart; we can never
feel any fear at such thoughts."

"That's true enough; but one cannot help thinking of such things, even
though one feels no dread of them; and I can well remember how terribly
afraid of Hell I used to be when I was a little innocent boy."

"Well--it is certain that it will not go well with us hereafter," said
Ezekiel. "I once asked a schoolmaster about it, and he told me that,
after death, our hearts are weighed to find out how much they are
burdened with sins committed. The light ones mount upwards; the heavy
ones sink downwards; and our stone hearts will weigh a good bit, I'm
thinking."

"That's very probable," replied Peter; "and I often feel very uneasy
that my heart is so indifferent and unfeeling whenever such thoughts
occur to me."

The night following this conversation Peter heard the well-known voice
whisper five or six times in his ear: "Peter! get yourself a warmer
heart!"

Although he felt no remorse that he had killed her, yet when he told
his servants that his wife had gone on a journey, he could not help
thinking: "Ah, but whither has she gone?"

Six days passed in this manner; every night he heard the voice, while
the little forest-spirit's terrible threat rang continually in his
ears. On the seventh morning he sprang out of bed, crying: "Come, I
will see if I can get a warmer heart, for this insensible stone in my
breast makes life too wearisome and dull for anything!"

He put on his best clothes, mounted his horse and rode off to the
Pine-grove.

Having arrived at the spot where the pines grew thickest, he
dismounted, tied his horse to a tree, and then strode swiftly to the
summit of the hill, and taking his stand before the great pine, he
repeated the old rhyme:

"Guardian of gold in the pine-tree wold.
Art many hundred ages old;
Lord of all lands where pine trees grow,
Thee only Sunday's children know."

And then the Glassmanikin appeared, but not friendly and cordial as
before, but sad and mournful. He was clad in a little coat of black
glass, and a long mourning band trailed from his hat; and Peter knew
well enough for whom he mourned.

"What do you want with me, Peter Munk?" he asked in a hollow voice.

"I have still one wish left. Master Guardian," replied Peter, casting
down his eyes.

"Can stone-