nd even rich, serious farmers, who seldom wasted many
words on anybody, and least of all on a poor child, now and then
condescended to ask little Amrei one. That she knew a great many herself
was not strange, for she had probably learned them from Black Marianne;
but that she was able to answer so many new ones caused general
astonishment. Amrei would soon have been unable to go across the street
or into the fields without being stopped and questioned, if she had not
found out a remedy; she made it a rule that she would not answer a
riddle for anybody, unless she might propose one in return, and she
managed to think up such good ones that the people stood still as if
spell-bound. Never had a poor child been so much noticed in the village
as was this little Amrei. But, as she grew older, less attention was
paid to her, for people look with sympathetic eyes only at the blossom
and the fruit, and disregard the long period of transition during which
the one is ripening into the other.

Before Amrei's school-days were over, Fate gave her a riddle that was
difficult to solve.

The children had an uncle, a woodcutter, who lived some fifteen miles
from Haldenbrunn, at Fluorn. They had seen him only once, and that was
at their parents' funeral, when he had walked behind the magistrate, who
had led the children by the hand. After that time the children often
dreamt about their uncle at Fluorn. They were often told that this uncle
was like their father, which made them still more anxious to see him;
for although they still believed at times that their father and mother
would some day suddenly reappear--it could not be that they had gone
away forever--still, as the years rolled on, they gradually became
reconciled to giving up this hope, especially after they had over and
over again put berries on the graves, and had long been able to read the
two names on the same black cross. They also almost entirely forgot
about the uncle in Fluorn, for during many years they had heard nothing
of him.

But one day the children were called into their guardian's house, and
there sat a tall, heavy man with a brown face.

"Come here, children," said this man, as the children entered. "Don't
you know me?" He had a dry, harsh voice.

The children looked at him with wondering eyes. Perhaps some remembrance
of their father's voice awoke within them. The man continued:

"I am your father's brother. Come here, Lisbeth, and you too, Damie."

"My n