rders to the forest-keepers, Irma was
resting on a mossy bank under a broad spreading fir tree. Her father's
dog had already made friends with her, and now came up and licked her
hand. Thus awakened, she arose and walked over toward the field at
the edge of the forest. The first object her eyes fell upon was a
four-petaled clover-leaf. She quickly possessed herself of it. Her
father now joined her and noticed her happy looks.

"How much good it has done me to rest on the earth," said she.

He made no reply. He did not think it necessary that every feeling,
however deep, should find vent in words.

Irma looked up in surprise. In the world of conversation, small change
is paid back for every remark.

They soon returned home.

During the afternoon they were seated together in the cool library.
Cicero's words, "When I am alone, then am I least alone," were written
in letters of gold, over the door.

The father was writing and would occasionally look at his daughter, who
was engaged with a volume of Shakespeare. She was reading the noblest
thoughts, taking them up into herself, and making them a part of her
own soul.

Eberhard felt it a joy to detect his own glance in another's eye, to
hear his own thoughts from other lips, and that eye and those lips his
child's--to note that her soul reflected his, although native
temperament and peculiar impressions had served to make hers different
from and independent of his own. The ideal that had filled his youthful
dreams now stood before him, incarnate.

Eberhard soon closed his book and smiled to himself. He was not so
strong as he had imagined. Now that his child was with him, he could
not keep on with his work, as he had done the day before. He sat down
by Irma, and, pointing to Spinoza's and Shakespeare's works, that
always lay on his work-table, he said:

"To them, the whole world was revealed. Although they lived centuries
ago, they are my constant companions on these lonely mountains. I shall
pass away and leave no trace of my thoughts behind me, but I've already
lived the life eternal in the companionship of the noblest minds. The
tree and the beast live only for themselves, and during the short
period that ends with death. With life, we inherit the result of
centuries of thought and he who, within himself, has become a true man
fully embodies the idea of humanity. Thus you live on, with your father
and with all that is true and beautiful in the history of the hum