he hasn't forgotten that I was godmother to her
child. Go and ask her if she will be godmother to mine."

"I don't think she will," Lukas answered, "but I'll ask her."

With a heavy heart he went by the fields and the barns that had once
been his own and entered the house of his old friend, the burgomaster.

"God bless you, neighbor," he said to the burgomaster's wife. "My wife
sends her greeting and bids me tell you that God has given us a little
daughter whom she wants you to hold at the christening."

The burgomaster's wife looked at him and laughed in his face.

"My dear Lukas, of course I should like to do this for you, but times
are hard. Nowadays a person needs every penny and it would take a good
deal to help such poor beggars as you. Why don't you ask some one
else? Why have you picked me out?"

"Because my wife was godmother to your child."

"Oh, that's it, is it? What you did for me at that time was a loan,
was it? And now you want me to give you back as much as you gave me,
eh? I'll do no such thing! If I were as generous as you used to be,
I'd soon go the way you have gone. No! I shall not walk one step
toward that christening!"

Without answering her, Lukas turned and went home in tears.

"You see, dear wife," he said when he got there, "it turned out as I
knew it would. But don't be discouraged, for God never entirely
forsakes any one. Give me the child and I myself will carry it to the
christening and the first person I meet I shall take for godmother."

Weeping all the while, the wife wrapped the baby in a piece of old
skirt and placed it in her husband's arms.

On the way to the chapel, Lukas came to a crossroads where he met an
old woman.

"Grandmother," he said, "will you be godmother to my child?" And he
explained to her how every one else had refused on account of his
poverty and how in desperation he had decided to ask the first person
he met. "And so, dear grandmother," he concluded, "I am asking you."

"Of course I'll be godmother," the old woman said. "Here, give me the
dear wee thing!"

So Lukas gave her the child and together they went on to the chapel.

As they arrived the priest was just ready to leave. The sexton hurried
up to him and whispered that a christening party was coming.

"Who is it?" he asked, impatiently.

"Oh, it's only that good-for-nothing of a Lukas who is poorer than a
church mouse."

The godmother saw that the sexton was whispering something unfriendl