d the water-jug--I never see her. Why
does she not come up? Is she ill?"

"No," said Henry, with a slight embarrassment of manner, which his wife
did not fail to detect.

"Ah! you conceal something from me" she cried. "I will go down directly
and see what is the matter with her."

"It is so long since you descended these steps, and there is no
banister--you will fall."

"No, no, I know the steps--I could find them in the dark."

"Those steps," said Henry, with a mock solemnity of manner--"those steps
will you never tread again!"

"Oh, there is something you conceal from me!" exclaimed Clara. "Say what
you will, I will go down and see Christina."

She turned quickly round and opened the door, but Henry clasped her as
quickly in his arms.

"My dear," cried he, "will you break your neck?"

The secret was at once disclosed. They stepped together to the
landing-place. There were no longer any stairs to be seen. Clara clasped
her little hands as she looked first down into the dark precipice below,
and then at her husband, who maintained the most comical gravity in the
world. She then ran back to the stove, snatched up one of the pieces of
wood, and, looking at it closely, said--"Ah, now I see why the grain was
so different! So, then, we have burned up the stairs?"

"So it seems," answered Henry, quite calmly. "I hardly know why I kept
this secret from you--perhaps that you might not be distressed by any
superfluous scruples. Now that you know it, I am sure you will find it
quite reasonable."

"But Christina?"

"Oh, she is quite well! In the morning I let her down a cord, to which
she fastens her little basket. This I draw up, and afterwards the
water-jug. Our housekeeping proceeds in the most orderly fashion in the
world. When the banister was at an end, it struck me that one half at
least of the steps of our staircase might be dispensed with; it was but
to step a little higher, as one is forced to do in many houses. With the
help of Christina, who entered into this philosophical view of the
matter, I broke off the first, third, fifth, and so forth. When one half
of the steps was consumed, the other half was also condemned as
superfluous--for what do we want with stairs, we who never go out?"

"But the landlord?"

"He will not return till Easter. Meanwhile the weather will be getting
milder, and there are still some old doors and planks up above, which I
shall pronounce altogether superfluous. Therefore warm