inst the
house, for some one to come and take the horse. No one came. Uli himself
had to unhitch and asked where to take Blazer. "Why, is nobody here?"
Nobody came. Then the old man went angrily to the stable and pulled the
door open, and there was the carter calmly currying horses. "Don't you
hear when you're called?" cried Joggeli.

"I didn't hear anything."

"Then prick up your ears and come and take the horse."

He'd have to make room for it first, growled the fellow, and shot in
among his horses like a hawk in a pigeon-house, so that they dashed at
their mangers and kicked, and Uli only by constant "Whoas" and at risk
of life got Blazer into the last stall. There he could find no halter
for a time.

"Should have brought one," was the carter's remark. When Uli went back
to the sleigh and untied his box, the wood-cutters were to help him
carry it; but for a long time none stirred. Finally they dispatched the
boy, who let the handle go when they were on the stairs, so that Uli
almost tumbled down backward and only owed it to his strength that he
did not. The room to which he was shown was not bright, was unheated,
and provided with two beds. He stood in it somewhat depressed, until
they called to him to come down and get something warm to eat. Outside,
a cheerful, pretty girl received him, nutbrown of hair and eyes, red and
white as to cheeks, with kissable lips, blinding white teeth, tall and
strong, yet slender in build, with a serious face behind which lurked
both mischief and good nature.

And over the whole lay that familiar, but indescribable Something, that
always testifies to inward and outward purity, to a soul which hates the
unclean and whose body therefore never becomes unclean, or never seems
so even in the dirtiest work. Freneli--this was the girl's name--was a
poor relation, who had never had a home and was always treated like
Cinderella, but always shook off the ashes--a girl who was never dimmed
outwardly or inwardly, but met God and men and every new day with fresh
and merry laughter, and hence found a home everywhere and made a place
for herself in all hearts, however they might try to resist her;
therefore she was often dearly loved by her relatives even while they
fancied they hated her, casting her out because she was the offspring of
an illicit intercourse between an aristocratic relative and a
day-laborer. Freneli had not opened the door. When Uli came out the
brown eyes rapidly swept ove