“But then,” said Daniel, “you know I’d been waiting six years.”

“How?” exclaimed Bertha.

“Yes, Bertha,—­I’m the real Daniel.  Look here!”—­and half a little silver cross came forward.

“And you didn’t say it when you came!—­and you actually gave her to him!—­and you saved his life!—­and oh! you, you CAPTAIN of a man!”

Thus Doome spoke and was comforted.

And Bertha went up to her old sweetheart and kissed him, saying, she thought she knew of a better wife for him than she could ever have made,—­for, now that Ernest (the French officer) had suffered so much for her sake, she had no right to leave him.  And, indeed, they were re-married that day.

It was after Bertha had said she knew of a better wife for him, that Daniel looked at Doome, who, picking up that pipe of his, handed it to him.

“Will you take care of it, Doome?”

“Save when you want it.”

“Oh!  I mean to come with it.”

“’Tis the handsomest pipe in all Germany,—­and—­and I won’t part with it till I part with you.”

Hence, you see, there were two marriages that morning.  Doome parted with the pipe a good deal,—­for Daniel loved the sea as heartily as he had loved Bertha and grew to love Doome, who assured him many times that she was a far better wife for him than Bertha would have made.  Whereupon Daniel would kiss her,—­so you can draw your own conclusion as to his motive.  For my part, I say first love is only heart-love,—­and you see the heart is not so wise as the head.

By the time the long war was over,—­with Waterloo for the last act, —­Ernest had made not a little money; so he and Bertha—­now a grand lady—­came to Ruegen.  Ernest learned German, perfectly, from his own children and Doome’s, and turned his sword into a ploughshare.

As for Daniel,—­he gave up the sea and took a wine-shop.

Those four people are now still alive; and if Bertha and Daniel did not marry, their children have,—­though it was rather lowering to those grand young ladies and gentlemen, Bertha’s children.

Those four, when they meet and clapper their friendly old tongues, can hardly believe that once upon a time they were all at sixes and sevens,—­and that Ernest himself was once in that very place a Prisoner of War.

THE “WASHING OF THE FEET,” ON HOLY THURSDAY, IN ST. PETER’S.

  Once more the temple-gates lie open wide: 
    Onward, once more,
  Advance the Faithful, mounting like a tide
    That climbs the shore.

  What seek they?  Blank the altars stand today,
    As tombstones bare: 
  Christ of his raiment was despoiled; and they
    His livery wear.

  Today the puissant and the proud have heard
    The “mandate new":[1]
  That which He did, their Master and their Lord,
    They also do.

  Today the mitred foreheads, and the crowned,
    In meekness bend: 
  New tasks today the sceptred hands have found;
    The poor they tend.