is a pity he cannot live with us, for they never can make a butcher of him!"

"The Lord's will be done," returned the curate sighing; "he knows that which is best for us all, and yet" he did not finish his sentence, but he began a calculation in his own mind, which he had made at least a dozen times before, namely, whether the income which barely sufficed for two persons could be made to maintain three. The calculation ended with another deep sigh, by which we may conclude that the result of it was not satisfactory.

"Barbara,” again began the Curate, "see that, on Monday, my every-day coat is mended at the elbows, and on Tuesday let it be folded neatly, and put in the press; a few days' rest now and then is good for everything." Barbara said

that this should be attended to, adding that she had looked out his walking shoes, and that they should be oiled and made ready for Wednesday. The Curate said that was right, and then Barbara having made two cherry-cakes instead of one, in expectation of the morrow's guest, went out with them on her head to the bakehouse. The Curate then filled his pipe, lighted it, and began to pace slowly up and down the middle alley of his garden; and while he is so doing we will give the reader a little information which he ought to possess for the better understanding of our story.

According to the ancient regulations of the grammar-school in Pappenheim, it was required that the master, four times in the year, that is to say, at the end of each quarter, should drink a certain quantity of a certain mineral water, on which occasion he received his prescribed quarterly payment of about two pounds sterling.

At the end of every quarter, therefore, he drank mineral water. This, of course, concerned himself, and was his own private affair: but had our dear young readers heard, on the close of the quarterly Saturday afternoon, when the worthy schoolmaster made known, in a clear tone of voice and in language easy to be understood, that, on the following Monday he should drink the mineral waters, and had heard thereupon the murmur of applause, and had seen the nodding of heads and the broad grins of delight that followed, he would have been quite sure that the scholars, every one of them, had in it their share of pleasure also.

The truth was, that this announcement of the Schoolmaster's, which to unlearned ears simply expressed his intention of drinking mineral waters on the next Monday, was just the same to the scholars as if he had gone on to say, and that, on Tuesday, he should receive presents from their parents; and on Wednesday, that he should take them (the scholars) all a long ramble. In all this the scholars had a long perspective of happiness; first, there was a whole holiday on Monday for play; secondly, on Tuesday, there was the home preparation of presents, cakes, and dried fruits, eggs and cheeses, part of which they themselves were to eat with the master, to say nothing of the pickings and gleanings which they had beforehand; and thirdly and lastly, there was, on Wednesday, the ramble beyond the limits of their own narrow valley, and sometimes even the climbing to the top of a mountain, whence they got a peep into the wide world.

Thus much told, we return to the Curate, whom we left smoking his pipe in the middle alley of his garden. Whilst he was thus encircled, as it were, by a halo of fragrance, the

door in the angle of the garden-wall slowly opened, and a head was thrust cautiously in, and then as cautiously withdrawn again and the door closed, but so softly as not to catch the ear of the Curate. The head that was thrust in was that of a boy of perhaps twelve years of age, fine-featured, and delicately complexioned, whose abundant hair, wavy rather than curled, fell upon his shoulders, and was partially covered by a little black cap, which sate gracefully on the crown of his head, and just touched the tip of his right ear. Had we or the Curate been near enough, that momentary glimpse would have sufficed to shew an expression of apprehension and trouble on that young countenance. The Curate walked on, and as the boy has apparently withdrawn himself, we will take this opportunity of making the reader better acquainted with him.

Friedrich Seyfried, ridiculed by his companions for his love of books, and for his fits of absence and abstraction of mind, was the son of a poor but learned man, whose books, though found on the shelves of the erudite, brought money into nobody's pocket but the printer's. He died whilst his son was yet too young to remember him; and his widow, who after his death maintained herself and her son by the embroidery of carpets, had now been dead also a few months. Friedrich had been carefully and well nurtured by his mother, and he had been long the favourite scholar of the Curate, who, after his mother's death, took him to remain in his house until some one of his relations offered to provide for him.

The relations, however, made no haste with these offers, and when they did, they were, unfortunately, by no means successful. The first who made trial of him was an apothecary, the half-brother of his mother. For a few weeks, all went

on very well; the apothecary was charmed with his knowledge of Latin and Greek, and already began to employ him in compounding of medicines. Unfortunately, however, one day, as he was ordered by the cook to prepare mug-wort for the roast goose, in a fit of absence of mind he gave her wormwood instead. A Michaelmas goose cooked with wormwood was an unheard of dish: the goose was spoiled. Friedrich, that same night, was sent back to the Curate's, with a polite note from the apothecary, saying that he would not have his life embittered by so unskilful a person.

The next attempt was with the half-brother of Friedrich's father, who was a shopkeeper and gingerbread-baker; but things went on no better here than at the apothecary's, for whilst the poor lad was learning the compounding of gingerbread, his mind was afloat among his books and his learning, and, mistaking salt for sugar, he shook a whole dishful into the mass, which was intended for Basle gingerbread, and ruined the whole baking. His uncle, who was a passionate man, gave him a box on the ear as warning to leave, and bade him tell the Curate that he would not lose his property and his profits in that way for any book-worm in the world.

Friedrich returned to the school-house humbled and mortified, and the apothecary and the gingerbread-baker, who supped together that night, agreed that a "boy whose head was always running a wool-gathering could not be much better than an idiot."

The Curate's was a spare table. Very little sufficed for him and old Barbara, and poor Friedrich had no chance of getting fat there. The butcher's wife, as she saw his thin fingers turning over the leaves of the hymn-book in church,

had compassion on him, and as her husband was his godfather, she persuaded him to make a trial of him. Friedrich had no taste for killing cattle, but nevertheless, after his former failure, he went there with the determination to be useful. Nothing reconciled the Curate to the thought of his being a butcher, but the knowledge that he would have enough to eat.

The good Curate was consoling his mind with this reflection at the very moment when Friedrich opened the garden-door.

Friedrich was still standing outside, with his hand upon the lock, and an expression of irresolution on his countenance, when Barbara, who was returning from the bakehouse, came unexpectedly upon him.

"How now, Friedrich," cried she, "are you here?"

"Oh Barbara," said he, almost crying, "what will he say?" "So then, they have sent you back again, have they?" asked the old woman. "Well, and what blunder have you made this time; spoiled another goose, have you?"

By this time they were in the kitchen, and Friedrich, throwing himself into a low seat, unburdened his conscience to Barbara. "I know they are very angry," said he, "and I do not wonder, for only think-and I cannot conceive how I did it-I emptied a gall into a mess of sausage-meat, and it was never found out till the half of Pappenheim were eating their dinners to-day!"

Barbara burst into a violent fit of laughter, and Friedrich, who thought the affair anything but amusing, sate looking very mournful, and twisting a piece of paper between his fingers.

"What have you there?" asked she, wiping away the tears of her laughter with her apron.