the stove, and his wife attacking the obtuse
youth in vain. Tailor Wenzel came to the
rescue. He insisted that the affair had all
been settled between him and Gottlieb at the
tavern; he dragged Lisel out of her hiding
place; he gave her to Gottlieb, who received
her open mouthed, then blessed them both,
and told his wife to make a cup or two of
coffee.

Next Sunday Gottlieb had his triumph.
That is to say, he went to the dance arm in
arm with his new sweetheart under Dorel's
window. He had meant to fling defiance at
the house as he went by, but his heart failed
when he came near it, and he hurried away,
dragging his Lisel after him in an ungainly
fashion. Lisel looked up in triumph from
among the roses and forget-me-nots inside
her bonnet.

But she had no reason to enjoy her
conquest. Gottlieb, though he betrothed himself
for three long years, evaded marriage. After
having endured his rudeness all that time, in
hope of being one day mistress of his house
and field, Lisel and her family abandoned
their design. Lisel married a young
journeyman tailor, who came by chance into the
village.

Poor little Dorel during those three years
worked at her lace pillow, and maintained and
comforted her mother. She showed no change
in her home-temper; and, as she scarcely ever
went into the village except when she went
to church, it could not be said that she was
running after her lost swain. Twice,
however, during that time, she became a topic in
the neighbourhood. Two suitors offered to
take Gottlieb's place, both of them well to
do; one of them, a young worker in the mines
who had lately risen to the rank of
under-overseer; the other, no less a person than the
son and heir of the village innkeeper. Dorel
refused them both, and a great talk arose
upon that head. Was she too proud? Did
she want Gottlieb back? Was there some
fine gentleman in the background? Was it
the mother who kept her, and lived upon
her? Another event made a great sensation.
The widow's little hut was the last house in
the village. A hundred paces further on
the road passed through a thick pine forest,
only passable by foot-travellers, or riders who
could put trust in their horses. One evening,
at twilight, the widow's family was alarmed
by a cry for help at the door, and found a
horseman who had come in from the wood,
and stopped at the first house in the agonies
of sudden illness. He was bent double and
was stiff upon his horse. Dorel mounted a
stool, and, steadied by her mother, lifted
him off, and took him in. She left him in her
mother's care, conducted his horse to the inn,
and then set off at dusk upon a mountain
journey to the nearest doctor, who lived six
miles distant. The stranger was a travelling
merchant, and was on the point of death.
After receiving much gentle help, he
bequeathed a pocket-book and its contents to
Dorel. With more gentle help, however, he
recovered; eventually, he departed, refusing
to take back his gift, which was then found
to contain good notes for three hundred
dollars.

"Thank Heaven!" said the mother; "now
we are at the end of trouble."

"Do you think so?" Dorel answered
sorrowfully. "It seems to me that now our
trouble will begin."

Months and years passed. The next great
event in Dorel's life happened in winter time.
A winter in the upper mountains of the
Hartz, is very gloomy and very comfortless.
Mountains and valleys lie covered yards deep
with snow; roads have vanished, and the
traveller on unknown ground incurs a risk
of breaking through into some hidden chasm.
The larch and pine-trees creak under their
load of snow whenever the wind crosses them;
and the whole forest seen at a distance, lies
like a dark green girdle on the mountain
sides. Ravens and crows become stiff in the
open air, and are found fluttering behind
the chimneys of huts. Out of the chimneys
rises gray smoke in heavy piles from the
brushwood mixed with dust and earth, which
forms the fuel of the peasants. It is a poor
fuel which smokes much and burns with a
suppressed dull glow on their hearths. Ice is
very thick on the little windows, and such
light as they can ever admit is lessened by the
heap of straw and refuse that rests against
the walls outside, and rises higher than the
window-ledge. There is a solemn silence on
the mountains, only broken by the sledges of
the charcoal burners, or the skimming over the
hard snow of some light sleigh that belongs
to a more wealthy mountaineer.

After a month of hard frost came a stormy
but too warm south wind, threatening a rapid
thaw. Thaw on the mountains brings with
it unusual perils. Fields of snow, traversed
easily in frosty weather, yield in critical
places under the traveller's foot; and he is
perhaps plunged into a mountain torrent, or
falls into a prison with four walls of snow,
which he attempts in vain to scale, and
between which he perishes.

On such a day, Dorel had been working for
a long time silently over her lace-pillow:
not telling tales, as she did usually, to the
younger children.

"Is anything the matter, Dorel?"

"No, mother;" but she answered as if
with her mind abroad.

"You do not talk. What ails you, child?"

Dorel owned that she felt ailing, though
she knew not how. She was disturbed,
she said. She dreaded some evil, she knew
not what. The mother thought it must
be heartburn. Dorel thought it might be
heartburn, for her heart felt bad. She
thought she would be better in the open
air. It needed some persuasion to get leave
to go abroad, because the mountain was not